The Silk Washing Stream
by PetertheChameleon
Summary: Centuries ago, men of the Water Tribes began dying, murdered by an unknown spirit. Drawn into the mystery, an unwary Avatar finds himself at the center of a hidden Water Tribe conspiracy, and an ancient feud between two spirits. Four Nations fic
1. Prologue

**Disclaimer:** Avatar: The Last Airbender and all related trademarks, logos, catchphrases, mottos, haikus, and sports memorabilia are property of Michael DiMartino, Bryan Konietzko, and Nickelodeon. No money is being made on this and it will be removed upon request of the copyright owners. The original characters belong to me in essence only.

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_**Yang Chong Year of the Crab-Rabbit, Tenth Month**_

_**849 years before the Air Nomad Genocide**_

_**949 years before the defeat of Fire Lord Ozai**_

—

There were sounds.

The silent waterbender wasn't quite sure what he had expected to hear, or if he had expected to hear anything at all. Alone in the deep night, enclosed in a ring of light that reflected off his shivering skin and his heavy white breaths, he'd waited with gnawing terror for something to break his solitude.

And then there were the sounds.

The crunching of snow approached him, barely audible over a cold wind. Yet it was distinct, unmistakable. Something large that neared with even steps, invisible outside the boundaries of his feeble bone lamp. His breaths became ragged, the white misty puffs irregular, but his hands never left their place along his naked knees, his fingers curled into his palms.

With maddening patience, the crunching drew closer.

It was then that he heard the whispers, creeping above the wind as if an audience of hundreds watched him. They swirled with the snow drifts, dancing along the meager flame, unintelligible and haunting. As he was alone in the tundra, he knew no living person made those whispers—no living creature stalked the darkness. This was how he was sure that his summons had been answered.

How he knew the spirit had come.

The steps ceased just outside the firelight, and he thought that if he strained, he might make out the feet of his new companion. But hours in the cold, stripped of his clothing and all warmth except the oil lamp, had left his muscles frozen and uncooperative. So he sat quietly, his breaths following his teeth, chattering from a chill that wasn't completely due to the snow.

"You have called me." The voice was little more than the wind, but it gurgled and hissed, like water thrown on a hot stone. Something inhuman yet somehow forming human words, and he swallowed hard to staunch the tremor that crawled along his spine—to work spit back into his mouth.

"Yes. I have called you." He lifted his arm in jerks, showing that invisible spirit the thin, blood-encrusted line along the inside of his elbow. "I have requests."

"Need I ask what your request is?" Its voice distorted loudly, and he realized it was laughing. The wind picked up in response, yanking at his flame, and it was as if the darkness laughed at him, as well.

"There is someone who I cannot touch. Someone who stands in the way of something I want."

"I am no ordinary vengeance spirit, child. You would be wise to consider to whom you speak."

"I know exactly who I've summoned, and my request is not ordinary." It was with effort that he kept his voice strong, the tremble in his shoulders threatening his words. "I don't ask for vengeance."

The spirit was intrigued, though nothing in the darkness changed to indicate it. He could simply _feel_ its curiosity. "Power, then? You seek to gain through another's downfall."

"It's for love."

The spirit's laughter bubbled through the night like froth, echoed by a hundred others. "For love. That's a rare request, indeed. Hardly any of my acts may be considered out of 'love.'"

"An ordinary spirit could accomplish what I want, but it'd be easily discovered." His body was numb, but his face felt on fire. Any slip—any sign of weakness—and he would certainly die. "I can't have anyone knowing what I've done. So I call on you. A great spirit such as yourself would never draw suspicion."

"Because they would never suspect one as weak as you could summon me?" He felt his stomach clench at the spirit's words, and his breath caught. "To be sure, I know just how weak you are, waterbender. My presence here is one of curiosity."

He had known it would come down to a battle of wills, but suddenly he didn't feel nearly so confident—so convinced of his success. Before this moment, there was the certainty that his need was strong enough to conquer any barriers. Now, he suspected that even with the most just cause behind him, he would have never dominated the spirit. Still, there was no turning back. He would have to coerce it into helping or risk its anger.

"I am simply a petitioner, great spirit, requesting your aid. It is your decision as to whether or not you will help."

"Give me the name of the one who impedes your 'love' and I will decide then."

He was prepared, lifting a small leather bag from the snow by its thong. This, he held over the flame, watching as the pelt smoldered and burned, the air filling with its acrid smoke. The wind sighed as the spirit breathed deep, and it gave a soft hum like shifting snow.

"The one you seek to harm is protected. He cannot be touched by any spirit."

"Perhaps no ordinary spirit," he said, making sure to keep his tone humble as he bowed his head. "But as you said, you are no mere vengeance spirit. You are one of retribution."

"And has this man done something for which he deserves such?"

"That is for you to judge."

The spirit's laugh was chilling. "Very well. At your request, I will bring 'judgment' to him." A hesitation. "That is, after I attend to more…immediate…matters."

He felt as if ice had slivered down his throat; the situation was quickly slipping out of his control. "I did not command you to—"

"You do not command me at all," the spirit interrupted sharply, its hissing voice filled with wrath. In response, the wind bit into his already numb flesh and stung his eyes. "As I said, you are too weak to control me. What I offer you is in payment for summoning me. And what you have now is a choice. Accept my offer," he could hear its derision, "or tempt my disappointment."

"Then it's not much of a choice at all." The contest was over even before it began. "Do what you will, as long as he is no longer in my way."

"Trust in me, waterbender." The spirit's voice abruptly grew hollow, as if disappearing into a cave. "You will have what you ask."

The wind howled around him and snuffed his candle out.

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**A/N: **A few things: first, this is an OC story, if you can't tell from the timeline. There are a few canon characters, and certainly, all of the places are canonical themselves (if just a bit different due to a millenium of change). But the main characters are OCs, based on an offhanded reference to a previous Avatar made in the show.

Second, I have a beta! I'm delighted to announce that Inazuma Akai has so kindly agreed to beta this fic. She'll be a huge asset in making sure the plot doesn't meander, and that my characters don't suck. Betaing takes a lot of time and commitment, and frequently the story is just as good as the beta. So if you like this story, definitely check out hers.


	2. Ch 1: Snow Games

**Chapter 1 - Snow Games**

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A cold wind swept across the tundra, dragging a shower of fine snow with it. It brushed over hills, past the rocks of mountains and the bones of former animals, now picked clean. Through villages and gulleys, where it chilled anonymous inhabitants and brought a taste of something foul with it. Past the lake it made its way, and sifted across a snowy expanse. An expanse where Hikoshu, fifth Fire Avatar since the Fall of Zinwei, now stood, his shoulders heaving with effort and his face drained of blood.

Hikoshu was being murdered. And no one seemed to care.

Actually, he was being slaughtered, and in fact, quite a number of people cared. Far too many people for his comfort, who took far too much delight in the brutal massacre of his manhood and the tragic death of his pride. Five women in total, aged from sixteen to twenty-three, were seated outside the hastily drawn square in the snow, all there for one explicit purpose: to see the Avatar get his dignity handed to him by a twenty-year-old girl.

"Is that all you have?" Mayami's tone was mocking, and she held her hands on her hips with apparent disinterest, the supple gray of her caribou-elk coat contrasting with her dark skin. "My grandmother bends faster than that."

Her comment was answered with squeals and giggles from the handful of similarly-dressed young women, who whispered behind their hands. Hikoshu probably would have blushed, but he was so used to Mayami's ridicule that it was almost expected. Besides, from the way this fight was going, he deserved it. There was only one way to retaliate that could possibly let him save face at this point.

So instead of reacting to her taunts, he slid into a stance and snapped his arms up, the snow shooting forward in two rows from his splayed fingers. They sped for her, two attacks to sweep her off her feet, but Mayami slipped lithely over the ground and twisted the rising snow into a whirlwind that dusted the square. Then, just as quickly, she sent the flurry of white crashing back toward him, which he narrowly dodged.

But his evasion was only a distraction; he knew she could counter the attack, so he had focused on bending the snow behind her—on calling it to him. The snow, like a wave, bulged up from the ground and hovered over her head, slowed under its own weight. Unsuspecting, Mayami ducked into a defensive form for an attack that was never coming, and then jerked her head toward the sound of the cresting snow. With a gasp, she threw up her arms, barely managing to shield herself in ice as it tumbled down on her.

When the snow settled, thick enough to fill the square, the girls at its perimeter gaped and Mayami struggled to pull herself out of the heavy drift. Hikoshu, smug, watched her futile attempts to bend herself free. He may not have been very fast in waterbending, but he was still pretty powerful. And even a fast waterbender such as she had a hard time moving that much snow.

"Funny, Hikoshu, now help me out," she said, buried up to her arms. Her skin was red where the snow had hit her, and her hair had come loose from its braided bun. Finally getting his fill of her misery, Hikoshu sauntered to the drift and bended half of it away, allowing her to fall unsupported to the ground. Gasping, she glared up at him with eyes made even bluer by her anger, and slapped away the offered hand.

Hikoshu retracted it swiftly. "Come on, Mayami, don't be sore." That didn't seem to make her any happier as she got to her feet, bending the excess water from her coat. "Force beats speed. That's all there is to it."

"I wish you had that philosophy in places _other_ than the practice yard."

Now, _that_ made him blush, and the fits of laughter from their onlookers did nothing to allay his embarrassment. "Was that really necessary?"

"You know I'm teasing," Mayami said with a grin, her anger vanishing as she wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her nose against his chin. "I enjoy all of your moves, whether or not they're used for fighting."

She loved embarrassing him. Returning the hug only half-heartedly, Hikoshu then pushed her back and straightened his coat in an attempt to regain some of his lost dignity. She beamed at his discomfort, her smile twisting the long line of small blue dots tattooed from the corner of her left eye to just beside her lips.

"Impressive, Hikoshu!" came a shout from beyond the square, and he turned toward its source**. **Their makeshift practice yard was situated outside the village, the blue silhouettes of ice huts melding with the yellow horizon. On the other side was a vast ice field, itself ending less than a mile away in a frozen lake. From it walked a group of three young men, strings of fish slung over their shoulders, their cocky grins neatly matching their thrown-back shoulders and wolf tails.

"Maybe soon you'll move on to fighting men?" Its leader—Siku—dropped his catch in the snow as the three came to a stop next to the girls. The fish left slimy wet trails on his coat, which he wiped at idly.

"Didn't you know?" quipped Onjuat, rubbing an upper lip barely dark with the first hints of a mustache. "The Avatar only fights women."

The third man, Tulit, laughed. "You mean he only fights Mayami. So he might as well be fighting a man."

Their laughter was cut short as snow shot up, engulfing them as the girls cried out and threw up their hands to avoid the shower.

Maybe he'd underestimated her, Hikoshu thought as he regarded Mayami's self-satisfied expression, her arms folded under her breasts. Her skill with waterbending was practically an art, mirroring his own ability with firebending. In some ways, it even surpassed it. Coughing, the men dug themselves out of the snow bank and glowered at her, and her gaggle of friends went back to jeering.

"Did you have something else to add about my bending, Tulit?" Mayami called out as Onjuat began searching for their now-buried fish.

Tulit brushed a sopping handful of slush off his head. "No, I think you've pretty much said it all." Their good humor was now gone, and one of the girls said something to them which only made their sour expressions darker. The comment, however, sent her friends into new peals of laughter.

"Did you just learn that move from me?" Hikoshu murmured, edging closer to Mayami's shoulder. She glanced up at him and grinned, giving his arm a gentle push.

"I learn all my best moves from you, _natsiqinu_." Admittedly, after all these years, he still wasn't very fluent in the Water Tribes' native tongue. But he definitely knew the word for 'penguin.' Mayami had made it her pet name for him nearly two months before.

"Speaking of manly women," Siku said, nearly stumbling as he yanked his string of fish free, "look who's headed this way." Mayami leveled a glare on the tribesman, causing him to shrink, as Hikoshu turned toward the ice huts. The figure that approached was obscured by the snow, but quite obviously Natquik. There weren't more than a hundred people in the village, and after a year of seeing them all nearly everyday, Hikoshu had learned to distinguish between the majority.

And, of course, the fact that Natquik had been a constant presence in Hikoshu's life for the last four years made him fairly recognizable.

"Looks like the chief let him out of the healing hut," someone said lowly.

"Don't know why. He's not much use outside of it."

Hikoshu rounded on the two men—apparently Siku and Tulit, who hunched their shoulders and tried to hide their surly expressions as they scraped snow off their catches. "Could you _not_ insult a friend of the Avatar in front of the Avatar? Please?"

"Good thing he has the Avatar to fight his battles," Tulit muttered, still loud enough for Hikoshu to hear. Before he could respond, though, Mayami tugged on his coat sleeve. She looked up shyly, her head bent so that she peered at him from below her eyebrows. It accentuated the sharp curve of her cheeks, thick lashes fluttering almost flirtatiously.

"Are we practicing a little more this afternoon?"

All thoughts of the offensive young men were wiped away, and he grinned wryly. "You mean without the audience this time?"

"I wouldn't want to embarrass you any further." That was a lie. But she was lovely, with her hair mussed and her blue eyes regarding him with such a false coyness. "Penguin."

Hikoshu grimaced. "You know how much I hate that." She laughed over him, and barely before he finished his sentence, she was wrapping him in another warm hug. It was a pleasant feeling, only interrupted by the sound of Natquik's voice.

"Is there a reason everyone's out here waterbending, instead of in the training square?" He had finally drawn near enough that Hikoshu could see him clearly. His hands were tucked into the pockets of his waterbending coat, the white fur seams and the long, tiger-seal fringe that hung loose from the base of his throat marking him as a Shaman. Above that, he wore his familiar grin, showing dimples that the Northern women apparently loved. And they'd probably be even happier with his new hairstyle; in Northern fashion, he'd taken to beading two plaits in front of both ears, letting them fall against his shoulders. Over his shoulder hung a leather pouch, decorated with similar blue beads and fairly reeking of bad meat.

"We would've invited you," Siku said, looking up from his overt flirting with one of the girls, "but we figured you'd be too busy healing the joint aches of grandmothers."

"I was busy with _your_ grandmother, Siku." Natquik barely even paused, rocking from one foot to the other. "And believe me, she has no problems with her joints. Besides, I don't need much more practice in my waterbending."

The insult on Siku's family was perhaps going a little too far, but Natquik typically got away with things like that. There was something disarming about his amiable mood, as if he never quite meant whatever he said—either his taunts or his compliments. But Siku still took offense, glaring at him as Poni giggled and pulled on his pants leg, and Tulit, roaring with laughter, fell into the remnant snow bank that Mayami made.

"Mayami challenged me," Hikoshu explained, though he didn't think Natquik was actually interested. "I couldn't say no to a friendly match." Surreptitiously, Mayami curled her fingers around his. Natquik caught sight of it, anyhow, and eyed him unhappily.

"Well, my cousin's pretty convincing. I bet she beat you, too."

"I let him win." Mayami smiled up at him, and Hikoshu awkwardly pulled his hand out of her grasp. "But he agreed to a rematch this afternoon. Didn't you?"

"That's going to be hard, seeing as we have some ice fishing to do." Natquik's voice left no room for argument, even if Hikoshu was prepared to argue. Which he wasn't; he did promise Natquik to get in some fishing before the weather changed for the worse. And as Hikoshu's host family expected him to make good on the promise, he really couldn't put it off.

Still, an afternoon alone with Mayami sounded much more appealing.

She looked up at him with heartbroken eyes, and he wasn't sure how much of that was honest emotion. "You're going to miss out on waterbending with me to go spend hours at a cold, lonely ice hole?"

"Well, how much bending practice would we really get in?" Her knowing grin said just exactly how much she expected, and Hikoshu hated ice fishing even more.

"I'm going to pretend I didn't see that, Mayami," Natquik muttered under his breath, and he seized Hikoshu's forearm, rumpling the thick, lavender-gray fur of his coat. Even as she started to protest, he was being dragged off.

"Careful out there!" Siku shouted one last jibe as they left the square. "Walrus-bears can't be 'healed' to death!"

Natquik merely waved without turning around, and Hikoshu glanced back at Mayami's fading form longingly. Sometimes, it was very hard to be Natquik's friend.

Of course, he had to expect the conversation while they were fishing. They'd already had 'the conversation' on a few occasions, usually while they were out doing something like this. And Natquik took any opportunity to bring it up. Which he did now, as he affixed his bone hook to a braided line.

"You're going to end up in trouble, you know."

"I'm fine, Mayami's fine. We're just having fun." His knot wasn't nearly so tight, but Hikoshu had lost enough hooks to kelp-cod to learn at least a functioning knot. Sighing at the lecture, he wondered idly if this was what having a brother was like. Or maybe even a dad. "Pass the bait?"

Natquik handed over the cloth-wrapped scraps of inedible meat without even looking up. "I know you're having 'fun.' But that's the problem. Neither of you are being serious about any of this, and you don't know what you're going to do if it turns serious."

Hikoshu wasn't really sure it could. Mayami was engaged to another man from a clan wintering somewhere further south. Even if they'd wanted to marry, her family would've never approved. "We're young, Natquik. Let us enjoy our youth. Just because you're bitter about never getting to enjoy yours…"

Admittedly, Natquik was only three years older than him, but Hikoshu had spent most of his life in one religious institution or another, giving his friend many more years to chase girls and have fun. Unfortunately, though, Natquik had been engaged at a very young age, and even more unfortunately, he was more faithful to that bond than he wanted to be. Shooting Hikoshu an oddly dark look that reflected the same thoughts, Natquik baited his hook.

"I have enjoyed mine. But I also used a little more discretion."

"Fine, whatever. I'll be as celibate as an Air Monk, I swear."

Then there was a long lapse in conversation as they dropped their lines into the fishing hole left by Siku's gang, and waited patiently on the stumps they'd bended from the ice. Perhaps the hole had already been fished out, as they sat there silently without a bite, the cold wind the only sound. Stretching for miles in either direction, the frozen lake was barren and bereft of life. Just a blank white, hemmed in by snow hills made gray by distance. Just like the rest of the South Pole, Hikoshu mused drearily, his thoughts lingering on those empty ridges. It was quite isolated, quite unlike the green islands of the Fire Nation, which only made him feel even more alone. And in his solitude, Hikoshu found himself thinking of Mayami.

"We haven't heard from her in a year," Natquik finally said, his voice quiet, and Hikoshu puzzled at first over whether or not he referred to Mayami. But just as quickly, he realized who Natquik really meant.

"She's assumed a lot of extra duties at the Temple." Hikoshu missed Miyo terribly—he always missed her, even when he wasn't thinking about her. But in the four years since Hikoshu had left the Western Air Temple, the pain had lessened to something that he could shove into the back of his mind, allowing him to learn waterbending and blend into the Southern Water Tribe.

"A year's a long time." Natquik was trying to sound casual about it, but he kept his eyes fixed on the short, wood pole clutched stiffly between his hands, his elbows resting on his knees so that he was hunched over the hole.

"Then she'll probably be by soon. She never stays away, as long as she can find a bison."

"If she was here, she'd be agreeing with me." Once again, they were back on Mayami. It was enough to make Hikoshu groan. "And you'd probably listen to her, too. You could never argue with her."

"Natquik, I'm twenty-six years old. I don't need you—either of you—telling me what to do." He waggled the pole angrily, almost jerking the hook out of the water. "And since when did you become the voice of responsibility? Usually, you're _fighting_ Miyo on these things."

He could actually answer that question, himself. First off, as Mayami's cousin, Natquik was practically obligated to protect her honor and betrothal to the zebra-seal clan. And the second reason was Natquik's unconscious anxiety over his own approaching marriage.

Before Hikoshu met Natquik, the waterbender had been rather accepting of his lot in life—marry the Water Tribe Princess, become a fairly mediocre chief of the Northern Water Tribe. But then his path intersected with Hikoshu's, and then Natquik did a lot of things with waterbending that were considered grievous offenses in the Water Tribes. Bad things—things that shouldn't ever be done on another human being. And if he'd done them to anyone _other _than Hikoshu, Natquik likely would have been executed. Fortunately, though, he was spared, and his only punishment was the negation of the marriage contract.

The sentence was a mixed blessing. Natquik got to taste what it was like _not _to be engaged for a few years, only to have the betrothal mysteriously reinstated the summer before last. Now he was just surly; he'd glimpsed what his life would have been without Water Tribe politics, only to be told that he would have that. Hikoshu imagined that was probably why Natquik was bothered by his obvious flouting of Water Tribe traditions: because he himself was bound far too tightly by them.

"So when do you leave for the North?" Hikoshu asked after a lengthy silence, when it was obvious that Natquik wasn't going to answer his last question. Already despondent, he seemed to grow even quieter, his expression falling as he rubbed his neck.

"The wedding's during the Ice Cutting Festival. So I'll have to leave within a month or two in order to avoid the seasonal storms." Then he added with a frown, "Fish don't seem to be biting. Too much noise."

A very Water Tribe-ish way of saying he didn't want to talk about it. The tribespeople were even less forward than the Fire Nation, if that was possible. And though Natquik tended to be pretty blunt with him when it came to Hikoshu's problems, he was very quick to avoid talking about his own.

So, again, they fell into silence, and again, Hikoshu had to suppress a wave of annoyance. Natquik was, on average, an even-tempered man with few mood swings and even fewer concerns. He took everything in stride, and provided a nice balance to Hikoshu's sometimes volatile emotions. However, in the preceding months, he'd changed, growing somber, more reticent. It was aggravating to see such a shift, but not to know what to do about it. Just sit quietly, Hikoshu supposed, and wait for it to pass.

But that silence stretched on for far longer than he thought it would, nothing biting, nothing changing but the sun as it crawled toward the west. And Hikoshu's mood grew even gloomier, his mind dwelling on Mayami and the hundred other places he could be right then. So distracted was he by these thoughts, that when something tugged lightly on his short pole, he reacted without thinking. Half out of frustration, half out of a need to move his frozen hands, Hikoshu simply bended the water from the fishing hole.

The kelp-cod that'd been taunting his line splatted against the ice, and both he and Natquik jerked back to avoid the splash as the fish floundered about, gasping for breath. With a sudden—and odd—stab of guilt, Hikoshu set his worthless pole down in order to catch it before it made its escape.

Abruptly water flowed out of the hole, engulfing the cod, and dragged it once more into the frozen lake. Blinking in surprise and vague irritation, Hikoshu turned to Natquik. He'd also put down his rod, his hands raised where he'd bended the fish back into the water. He shook his head in admonishment.

"Why is it that you want to invite the wrath of the lake spirit?"

Hikoshu slumped his shoulders, both guilty and sullen. "I'm the Avatar. I'm sure he'd forgive me."

"Why bother finding out if _she_ would?"

Because they wouldn't catch anything otherwise? It was exasperating, and Hikoshu was fully prepared to tell him so. But as he opened his mouth for the retort, a sudden pain shot through his left eye.

A _sharp _pain. In a split-second, it became a consuming pain, and Hikoshu gasped, clutching his head in panic. Spots danced in his vision as his thoughts flew wildly about, scrambling, desperate for some logical explanation. Had he been injured? The pain, which now throbbed like waves of heat, was far too visceral for that, as if something scratched at his brain with claws.

Natquik was talking to him, though Hikoshu held his head so tightly, sound reached him only in murmurs. All he could do was suck on his teeth and wait for the agony to subside. Breathing deep, he forced himself to be calm. And just wait.

It did fade, eventually. Hikoshu had been convinced it was an hour, but when he slowly released his head, cracking his eyes in trepidation, the sun hadn't moved, and neither had Natquik. He still sat on his ice stool, one hand raised in mid-attempt to help.

"Everything alright?" he asked, slowly lowering that hand.

Hikoshu wished he could say that it was, but an irrational fear that even thinking about it might bring it back made him shake his head. "It's nothing. Just a headache."

"Probably the lake spirit," Natquik muttered. "Told you not to mess with her."

Already, the pain was hard to remember, growing faint, as Natquik collected both of their rods and quickly disassembled the lines and hooks. "I have a feeling we're not going to catch anything today," he said. "We'll just have to try tomorrow."

Hikoshu was only partly relieved. "Can't we wait a week?"

"You know, for a fisherman's son, you're not especially gifted at it." He was stowing away the various ice-fishing implements in the leather pouch he'd brought, such that he didn't see Hikoshu's offended stare.

"Our fishing involved boats. And nets. And _bending_." Alright, probably not the last. It was pretty difficult to catch fish with firebending. "Besides, Fire Sages don't fish too often."

"I can tell." Then Natquik stood, the ice stump melting into the lake as he slung the pouch over his shoulder. "Mind throwing the bait in the water? I don't imagine even the dogs would eat it."

"Bet there's a number of villagers who would." He muttered the mocking joke under his breath as he bended his own stool back into the ground, then scooped the fur full of rancid meat off the ice. As he dumped it, the little bits of flesh made plopping sounds in the water, which roiled with the movements of unseen animals snapping up the remnants of bait. "So _now _they're biting. I've said this before, but I really think there's something on your twine that's putting off an od—"

Hikoshu cut off, the rest of his words lost as something floated toward the surface of the ice hole. At first, he was inclined to dismiss it as a fish—or a trick of the light. But the closer it came to the top of that dark, greenish water, the more the object looked like nothing that was supposed to be there.

"I've been using fresh twine," Natquik said from behind him, unaware that Hikoshu had stopped paying attention to him, and unaware of what now held his gaze. Doubtfully, Hikoshu knelt by the fishing hole, then reached into the water to pull the object out.

The amorphous shape took the form of a feather, longer than his hand, its separate barbs clumped together in a straggly tangle and its once-white color tapering to a point of blue. Odd, Hikoshu thought as he turned the feather over in his fingers. Siku or one of the others must have dropped it while fishing. But none had been wearing feathers.

He started to move away from the ice hole when something abruptly shot from the water. A hand, its frozen fingers latching onto his wrist just below the fur cuff, its skin a sickly gray-white. His heart slamming into his throat, Hikoshu immediately jerked back, but the hand held firm, keeping him next to the water as he gave a hoarse, guttural cry.

Prying at the fingers, he tried to wrench his arm free, and fear swamped him even as his mind tried to direct his actions—tried to get him to firebend, or waterbend, or airbend. Whatever was necessary to save himself from the thing that held him. But just as he managed to seize control of his panic, the hand let go, its fingers slipping into the undisturbed water as if it had never even been there.

Something grabbed his shoulder.

With a panicked shout, Hikoshu whirled around and grasped the new enemy's wrist, preparing to snap its arm. Fortunately, rational thought overrode instinct, and he found himself staring into Natquik's eyes, the whites visible all around his irises.

"Hikoshu?" he uttered, trying to tug his arm loose. With a nervous sigh, Hikoshu released him and turned back to the fishing hole.

"Did you see what grabbed me?" The water was dark and calm, lifeless.

"Kind of like you grabbed me?" Natquik rubbed at his wrist where Hikoshu had held tight. "What happened to you?"

"A hand came out of the water." He'd had no idea how incredibly foolish that sounded until he said it aloud. "It wouldn't let go of me."

Natquik took his shoulder again, this time with far more hesitation. "Are you sure it wasn't a tiger-seal? They use these holes, too."

Hikoshu wasn't sure about anything. Tiger-seal, though, seemed a lot more reasonable than anything he'd thought he seen, and quickly, he found himself believing it. Maybe his eyes were just worn out from the tundra; that happened all too often, without a visor.

But if it was a tiger-seal, then why didn't its teeth leave a mark? Hikoshu examined the skin of his wrist and found it unbroken. It wasn't even red.

Strange. With a shake of his head, he got to his feet, just as Natquik slung his bag over his shoulder once more.

"Should we take the long way back, or take the short route and suffer the ridicule of Siku and his friends?"

"Wouldn't it be cowardly otherwise?" Hikoshu tried ignore the way his legs trembled, but he doubted they'd be reliable at least until they were off the lake.

Natquik shrugged. "I'm looking out for your delicate Fire Nation sensibilities."

Mayami wouldn't be so kind if she discovered his attempts to avoid being mocked. With a weary gesture, he signaled Natquik onward. "Just go."

The sun was starting to set when they made their way east, their village far in front of them and a freezing wind to their backs. But for Hikoshu, the walk home didn't seem quite the same as before. No, he couldn't be sure what had caused the pain in his head, or what had come out of the water. But he _knew, _just as inherently as he knew how to bend, that something was wrong. It was as if the world had changed just slightly since they arrived—as if something more than the wind brushed at his hair and crawled along his neck.

Like something more than the softly falling snow was hidden in the coming night.

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**A/N: **As always, thanks to my beta reader, Inazuma Akai, for her work in making this chapter possible. And as always, please R&R!


	3. Ch 2: Hota

**Chapter 2 - Hota**

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Hota had the tent to himself. It wasn't necessarily unusual that he was alone, but it was unusual that a cluster of young apprentices had not gathered at the flap. During the winter months, just before the Solstice Ordination, they would often fight for his attention, as if a few last-minute efforts would make him change his mind on who was ready to ascend to the ranks of Shaman.

Fortunately, though, they had taken his advice to heart for once and left him to his ruminations. Even an old Water Shaman such as himself had to convene with the spirits on occasion. Or at least that was what he told them. In reality, he was just happy to be by himself.

Lithely, despite his great age, Hota fished out flint from the pocket of his waterbending coat and stood on his toes to light the wick of a hanging oil skin. It was almost unnecessary, as the light from the smoke hole and doorway was enough to the illuminate the room. But he knew night would approach soon, and he'd be left fumbling for the lantern.

Around him, hung on the hide walls, were a variety of sacred objects. Ceremonial animal heads, representing the beasts they would hunt in the summer, as well as ritual relics of all kinds—drums, masks, pendants, pipes, each signifying a special connection to the spirits. Between them were scrawled images in coal and ochre, everything of symbolic import and used either to summon the kind spirits or ward off the malicious ones. Hota supposed it would have been wiser to have simply fashioned an ice hut instead of insisting his apprentices carry his tent from the summer grounds. But he was fond of the artistically woven hides, which made him feel more comfortable in the tundra.

And Hota was a powerful enough Shaman that everyone wished for him to be comfortable.

He took a seat by the small, stone-lined fire pit in the center of the tent, the bones of his knees prominent through his gray, sealskin pants. Bones were prominent from every angle of his body, and Hota often wondered how much of him was skeleton and how much was still man. But there was life yet in the sagging skin around his chin, or the folds over his blue eyes. With a grace carried over from his youth, he arranged the driftwood and kindling before sprinkling them with a handful of aromatic white-sand birch leaves. When he lit the fire, the scent of the leaves filled the air, circling with the smoke, and put him almost immediately into a meditative trance.

The best aspect of birch leaves was that they did not send him into a fitful trance, as other fragrances did, or even into a knowledge-seeking trance. Instead, it was a restful trance, and he moved in and out of darkness for an indeterminate amount of time, his thoughts like the snow flurries he glimpsed slipping through the smoke hole.

Perhaps for too long. When Hota finally came out of the trance, the light outside had disappeared, and even the flame in his oil skin had burned low enough that the tent was now dark with shadows. His fire, of course, had turned to embers long ago, the wood a dull red against its blackened bed.

What startled him most, though, as he looked to the doorway of the tent, was that no one had interrupted him. Surely the apprentices would have grown anxious about his absence. Surely, one of them would have thought to disrupt his meditation with some ridiculous excuse in order to be perceived as the most alert. But, surprisingly, he was still alone. His joints had grown cold in the interim, and feeling his age in their stiffness, Hota groaned as he started to his feet.

It was the sound that stopped him.

All he heard was the crunching of snow beyond the door, ceasing just outside the flap. This wouldn't have been unusual, had he not been aware that the snow out there was soft. The freeze was not yet hard enough to create the kind of crust that those footsteps broke, and with all of his heightened senses on edge, Hota felt the wind shift from the smoke hole to the door.

The thick flaps moved reluctantly with the breeze, revealing snow made dingy by the feeble lamplight. There was _someone_ outside that door, but the stranger did not try to enter and the moving flaps did not show his feet. Slowly, fighting back his anxiety, Hota stood.

"Hota." It was as if the wind had called his name, hissing softly through the hole above him. But the sound came from the door, hollow and unnatural. He shuddered as his skin crawled under his coat. "Hota…"

"You have no business here, spirit," Hota said in a voice that was far more confident than he actually was. "I never called you."

"You have called me." The words barely rose above a loud whisper, gurgling in an inhuman manner. Still, the spirit didn't enter. "And after so many years, I've come."

His blood turned cold. Was this a spirit from his youth? Before he'd learn how to properly convene with the other world? Was this some disaster he had created long ago?

The certainty he had in his wards and protections seeped away, and he felt unbearably exposed. Almost without thought, Hota stepped toward a buffalo-yak head, mounted on the hide wall and smeared with elaborate black paint. The mask, which had so often hidden him from the far-reaching eyes of the cloud spirits, just might hide him here.

Outside, the spirit laughed a laugh of churning water. "I can see you, Hota. I always could." When it said his name, it drew out the sound, lingering on each syllable as if savoring it. "I've simply come to collect what's due."

"What? What do I owe you, spirit?" He was sweating. Sweating enough that his robes were soaked. And the empty, black eyes of the buffalo-yak stared back helplessly, its moth-eaten muzzle twisted into a forlorn grimace.

The spirit sighed, vacant, lifeless. "It's not what you owe me. It's what you owe them."

His skin flushed both hot and cold as realization dawned on him, and his stomach folded painfully on itself as he digested the implications. Making what he knew was a futile dive for that miserable animal-head, Hota grabbed at its worn mane.

The world vanished in agony before he even touched the hide.

**

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**A/N: **Thanks to my wonderful beta reader, Inazuma Akai, for checking this chapter out and clearing it for launch!


	4. Ch 3: Unsettling Words

**Chapter 3 - Unsettling Words**

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In the Water Tribes, legend had that the world was born of two colors: the blue of the sky, and the white of the snow. Which seemed pretty self-explanatory, as there were few other colors to their environment. Even today, which was a brilliant day by comparison to most others, sparkled with hues that ranged only from blinding white to dark gray. The mounds of ice huts dappled the landscape in shadow, and men and women lingered in the packed-ice thoroughfares that served as roads, their slate-colored coats breaking the monotony of the snow. Still, despite the lack of variation in color, Hikoshu considered this day to be a quite magnificent day. The sun was warm, the air whispered with a sharp breeze, and he could almost taste the salt of a far-off ocean. The sensation was kind of freeing, giving his mind release as he worked through a particularly difficult bending routine. And it seemed nothing—not even the distant voices of onlookers—could break him from his spell.

He was, unfortunately, wrong.

"No, not good at all."

Kinu came to a stop in front of Hikoshu, who drew back, confused, the water between his hands coalescing and then collapsing on the snow. The old Shaman closed his eyes and shook his head of white hair, his brow furrowing as if pained. Such a look made the paper-thin wrinkles of his face appear even more pronounced, conveying an expression both of wisdom as well as fatigue. Then again, those were the two words that most accurately described Kinu, who could move so deliberately that one wasn't sure if he was thinking out his next step, or if he was debating whether or not he'd make it.

He seemed far from old right then, as piercing blue eyes admonished Hikoshu before he spoke again. "How many times do we have to go through this step?"

Hikoshu could feel the others around him cease their practice, turning to watch the rebuke. Situated as he was near the center of the wide practice yard, Hikoshu provided a good view to every one of the twelve students. Each dropped his stance and shifted his gaze, such that a sea of identical blue apprentice coats now faced him.

Without looking, Kinu swung a hand to his left. A wave of snow hit the nearest student hard in the chest, knocking him to the ground. "Keep working on your right ward, Kigo."

At that signal, every student returned to his routine.

"Watch your left arm." Kinu bent his knees, moving through the form that Hikoshu had just blundered, his eyebrows, nearly as long as his lips, fluttering around his ears. Suddenly, it was as if he'd shed twenty years, and his feet slid smoothly along the snow-dusted ice of the practice yard. _This_ was why everyone had stopped to watch. Hikoshu ruining a step was nothing new. But Kinu rarely ever demonstrated the proper technique, which was a job relegated to the highest-ranking apprentices.

"See what I'm doing here?" he continued. "You push with your right, _pull_ with your left." His right hand moved out toward Hikoshu's neck while the left swung high near his head, straight and away. "What happens to the water if you don't pull, Hikoshu?"

"It'll collapse." They'd gone through this quite a few times. And he was becoming tired of the reminders. But for some reason, this one particular step repeatedly eluded him, no matter how often he practiced the sequence.

Kinu must've heard the impatience in his voice, his eyebrows jerking downward, darkly hooding his eyes as he frowned. Then swiftly, he turned on his heel and marched ten paces away, only to stop near one of the totems that marked the boundary of the court. Hikoshu couldn't guess what he intended to do until he wheeled about to face him again, knees bent and arms twisted at ready.

"I want you to attack me. We'll use nothing but the Water Riposte, understood?"

Despite Kinu's earlier warning, all activity in the practice yard stopped and every eye turned on them. Suddenly, the village outside the court seemed deathly still, the ice huts as frozen as the students who stood inside the totem-marked square. Even Hikoshu felt stuck in place, his feet rooted to the spot.

He really didn't want to attack Kinu. It would end badly, and he knew it. They all knew it. At the same time, he felt eager to lash out at a man who'd been riding him particularly hard for the last few months. And now that he'd been challenged in front of twelve men, all younger than he, Hikoshu would certainly be called a coward if he refused.

So he bended a globe of water from the cistern in the center of the square, and turned it under his hands before he drew back to launch it at his master.

Kinu stepped more gracefully through the technique than Hikoshu ever had, each step fluidly shifting into the other. And as he snapped his right hand forward, the left arm away, the water responded by curving back on itself, then shooting straight at Hikoshu.

Hikoshu tried to answer with the same move—tried to remember to pull his left arm. But he simply hadn't mastered the technique yet, and he yanked his hand too fast. Slowing in front of him, the water folded on itself, but uncertain of the command, it quivered.

Then slammed directly into Hikoshu's chest, knocking him back several feet.

He caught himself with air before he hit the ground, and airbended back to a stand as Kinu approached him.

"Let this be a lesson to all of you," the Shaman said, his hands folded behind him, "as I know many of you are also failing to watch this most important step." Carefully, Kinu bended the water out of Hikoshu's coat and cupped it above one hand. "The essence of waterbending is the ability to change. To take what is given to you and make it your own. To use your opponent's power against him. If you fail to take full command, your enemy still has power. If you do not dominate the attack, you leave yourself open to be attacked again."

Then, lowering his voice to a normal volume as he turned back to Hikoshu, Kinu added, "Left arm pulls. If you don't pull, the water doesn't respond, and your opponent still has control of it. Remember that." He dropped the water on the ground as he walked away.

Hikoshu didn't know what was more frustrating. Being treated in such a way after he'd already mastered two bending arts, or knowing he probably deserved it. It was true that waterbending was not nearly as difficult to learn as airbending, and he was having to make up for all the years he'd trained in the other arts. But Hikoshu was still unnerved by the fact that men four years younger than he were at his level or better. He supposed when he finally got to earthbending, the age gap would be even worse.

"You know, I don't think Kinu likes you much."

Hikoshu turned at the sound of Natquik's voice. The waterbender stood just behind him, outside the slightly raised ice platform of the practice yard. Though 'stood' wasn't the proper term—he'd bended himself a support from the snow, which he now leaned against with both elbows, his head propped in one hand. Flippantly, he thrummed his fingers along his cheek. "But he was right about the Riposte."

"I suppose you can do better, Master Healer?" Hikoshu's frustration found outlet in ridiculing Natquik's mediocrity at sparring. Natquik wasn't fazed, though, shrugging as he straightened.

"I don't need to do better. Already a Shaman." He waggled the length of tiger-seal fur to make his point. Then, bending his ice podium back into the ground, he arched his eyebrows in good humor. "Just about done there?"

"Well, I _am_ one 'Crust upon the Cornice' form away from being a fully realized Avatar, but if ice-fishing calls…"

"What are you doing here, Master Natquik?" said a young, knobby-nosed student to Hikoshu's left. "It's the girls' healing lesson today." Natquik looked to the student—Akaino—with a frown, just as his sparring partner Sura snickered.

"He must be desperate to see some real men's bending."

"Sura!" Kinu snapped sharply, and Sura nearly threw his water onto him as he approached. "Back to your stance!"

"They just don't respect the Shaman coat like they used to," Natquik said with a sigh, tucking his hands into his pockets. "Chief Atua wants to see us both. And you, too, Master Kinu," he called past Hikoshu's shoulder.

Kinu grunted as he came to a stop, merely glancing at Natquik. "Chief Atua knows I'm in the middle of a training session."

"And I was in the middle of a healing lesson. I guess it's pretty important."

Again, Kinu grunted, starting toward the other end of the practice yard. "Let Chief Atua know I will attend at my earliest convenience. Master Avatar, you're free to leave."

Yet another confusing cultural difference was Kinu's ability to refuse his leader's orders. It was as if Atua's position were merely a formality, with no real power behind it. Hikoshu knew, though, that was exactly what it was. The Southern Water Tribe prided autonomy over authority. People listened to Atua because they wanted to. And when they didn't want to…

He didn't fully understand it, nor did he try to. Bending the remnant water from his coat, Hikoshu gave Kinu a final bow that he never saw and stepped out of the square to follow Natquik to the kashiq.

The 'kashiq' was merely a Water Tribe word for 'fancy meeting hall.' Or at least as well as Hikoshu could determine. In the North, it was an enormous ice palace, dominating the landscape and towering over every aspect of tribal life. In the South, it was merely a gathering place—a large ice rotunda at the center of each village. This being the village of the chief, its kashiq was particularly extravagant, with carved fish and masked-dholes surrounding the windows, and colonnades designed to resemble waterfalls guarding its entrance. It was also quite a bit larger than other kashiqs, too. But by the end of the winter, they would leave it for land further north, switching to tents instead. Just another aspect of Water Tribe impermanence.

Hikoshu straightened his coat, smoothing his hands over the thin, white-fur strips that were sewn from each shoulder to his waist—the markings of an apprentice coat. "His messenger didn't say why the chief wanted us?"

Natquik shrugged, walking several steps in front of him. "I didn't ask. We're about to find out, anyway, aren't we?" They came to a stop before the enormous ice doors, and two apprentices stepped forward to bend them open. Natquik nodded to them, but Hikoshu skipped the pleasantries, his eyes and thoughts on the dark interior.

Though there were dozens of ice sheet windows high in the thick walls, the round room still seemed wreathed in shadow. As a meeting hall, it was mostly just open space. Sometimes they would bend benches for everyone to eat together, perhaps during a festival, or they would hold gatherings under the fanciful Southern Water Tribe seal carved into the arched ceiling. Right then, the room was far emptier than usual, the faces commonly seen around the kashiq now missing.

At the opposite end of the chamber, sitting on an ice shelf that followed the kashiq wall, was Atua. To Hikoshu, he was the epitome of the Water Tribes. Everything about him described "strength"—the square cut of his jaw, the way his graying hair still clung to its youthful black in some places. And even though he was small in stature compared to other tribesmen, Atua made up for his height with presence. He sat with his shoulders thrown back, an elbow resting on his knee, the thick white collar of his heavy coat obscured by layers of bone pendants. Each item he wore was something he caught, and fashioned, himself. Even the stiff leather boots that he'd set at the foot of the shelf.

Currently, he was engaged in quiet conversation with a strange Shaman who hung low beside his shoulder. On occasion, Atua would nod thoughtfully as the man whispered at his ear. It had to be someone from a neighboring village, Hikoshu supposed, though the nearest village was a three days' journey even by polar dog sled.

At their approach, Atua looked up with a smile that barely softened his face, made hard by years of cold. Signaling for the Shaman to hold off on the conversation, he stood and walked toward them, his arm outstretched.

"I'm glad you could join me, Avatar." They seized each other's elbows, holding firmly through their coats. Behind him, the unknown tribesman departed wordlessly for the door, while Atua moved to grasp Natquik's arm. "Master Shaman. Where is Shaman Kinu?"

"He'll be here once his lessons finish," Natquik said. Atua merely nodded, unsurprised and unoffended by the action.

"Then come sit with me and we'll eat while we wait."

It was dishonorable to refuse a host's offer of food. So Hikoshu had to eat, despite having no desire to. Water Tribe food consisted of any variety of meat. In fact, they'd even cook their vegetables to taste like meat. The result was that Hikoshu's sensitive stomach, which never quite recovered from the strict vegetarian lifestyle of the Western Air Temple, was under constant assault by an overly rich diet. He'd figured out a few foods that were more or less compatible with his digestion, and his foster clan, laughing at his weak stomach, had grown accustomed to providing them.

But Chief Atua was not aware of this particular arrangement. So, seated cross-legged on the leopard-yak rug spread along the floor, Hikoshu forced himself to eat the proffered brine-pickled penguin gizzards, or the kelp-broiled snow mice. Luckily, Natquik held up the conversation with Atua, because Hikoshu wasn't sure if he could do both at the same time.

The discussion ran along the lines of Natquik's students. How they were doing, or if any had shown any proficiency in healing. Natquik tried to sound positive, but it was obvious he was less than impressed with their skill. Hikoshu knew he wasn't very impressed with his. But honestly, healing wasn't that common of a talent. And even the Avatar couldn't be expected to master everything.

Healing wasn't the only way in which Natquik provided a stark contrast to him. Sitting next to each other, they were pretty much as opposite as their respective elements. Though Hikoshu had tanned from his years at the Pole, Natquik was still three shades darker than him, and even seated, he was about two inches shorter. Mayami had always described Hikoshu as a walrus-bear with no claws. His features were quite pronounced, severe and imposing when he was upset, and his frame was more muscular than the tribesmen's. He easily towered over most of the villagers, and even his eyes—Fire Nation eyes, Mayami would say—had the same copper color as a walrus-bear's. But for all of the intimidation built into his solid shoulders, he was perpetually teased for his lack of fortitude in so many things, such as in eating this horrible meal.

Natquik, however, was much thinner, the fluid lines of his body more resembling water. Unlike Hikoshu, who was quick to offend, Natquik was always quick to diffuse, his face invariably set on the edge of a mollifying grin. Though where that grin was now, he couldn't guess; Natquik's expression had taken on an unpleasant hue that closely mirrored his.

"You'll need to find a replacement soon," Atua said as he pushed a long braid behind his shoulder to keep it out of his bowl of cod-oil beat broth. "We need a Shaman to take over as healer after you leave for the North." Natquik and Hikoshu both grimaced, though Hikoshu was mostly from the same terrible broth.

"There are some who might be satisfactory," Natquik said. _But not very good_. Hikoshu could easily read into his words. "I'll choose before the next full moon."

The fact was, as Hikoshu had told him countless times, Natquik's standards were far too high. Natquik was, by general consensus, the most powerful healer either Tribe had seen in centuries. He had no false modesty on the subject, nor was he hesitant to explain that however powerful a bender he was when it came to healing, none of it carried over to actual waterbending. He was only a mediocre fighter, impressive only in his ability to avoid fighting altogether for that very same reason.

Though how healing and how physical waterbending were different, Hikoshu could barely grasp. It had something to do with seeing paths of _chi, _and knowing how to tweak them, and a lot of other things Hikoshu didn't get because he was horrible at healing. It still didn't change the fact that if Natquik was only going to accept his equal, he was never going to find someone to replace him.

Hikoshu figured, though, he knew why his standards were so high. Somewhere, buried within his mind, Natquik really didn't want to find a replacement. Because it would be one more note of finality in his life as a Shaman—another sign that his peaceful, idyllic existence was about to end. So Hikoshu thought he understood his feet-dragging. It still didn't mean he could avoid it.

They were still discussing Natquik's future successor when the doors opened again, a cold breeze sifting through the large room. Kinu strode in with purpose, his bearing demanding respect, at odds with the almost casual attitude of Atua. When he approached the fur where they all three sat, the meal spread out between them, Atua gestured for him to join.

"Shaman Kinu, please have some food."

He waved it off with thin fingers, though he did sit next to Natquik, folding his legs under him. "I have little time, Chief Atua. Could we pause in eating long enough to discuss the matter at hand?"

Much to Hikoshu's relief, Atua assented, laying down his bowl.

"I hate to ruin your meals with ill-tidings, but I also hate to delay in the news." Closing his eyes briefly, Atua then said with a sigh, "Shaman Hota is dead."

Which—of course—didn't surprise Hikoshu. The man was easily in his nineties. And while he could've lived longer, his death in this harsh climate was nothing of note. If Kinu and Natquik had the same idea, they didn't show it, their eyes trained on Atua.

"His death was unexpected." Again, a deep breath, and the chief laced his hands in his lap as if drawing on inner-strength. "Brought about by unnatural means."

It was a Water Tribe way of saying murder. Both Kinu and Natquik understood immediately, their eyes widening, and Hikoshu wondered if perhaps they understood more than he did.

"Have they caught the responsible person?" Kinu asked. Despite the barely perceptible change in his expression, his voice was as calm as if he were asking Atua to pass the beat broth.

"There is no responsible person." Something then passed across Atua's face—a shadow of emotion that Hikoshu would've guessed was fear, had he not known that Tribesmen felt no fear. "The stone-frog clan is not entirely sure how it happened."

"What exactly _did_ happen, Chief Atua?" Kinu didn't sound nearly so indifferent now.

Atua gave a glance around the kashiq, which was empty except for them. Still, he lowered his voice as if to keep prying ears from overhearing, his expression stricken. "Burned to death. Little remained of him."

The concept was far more horrific to the two waterbenders than it was to Hikoshu. Perhaps because he'd heard enough horror stories of firebenders losing control. Perhaps because there was very little worse than burning alive to someone from the Water Tribe. So while Kinu and Natquik considered the news in stunned silence, Hikoshu merely shrugged uncomfortably and continued the questioning for them.

"Was he alone in the tundras?" He couldn't imagine anyone choosing to go alone into the wilds of the Pole, but there was no other explanation. It would take days to burn a person so thoroughly without a source of wood. Someone would have noticed him gone before then.

Atua's brow darkened as he shook his head. "Shaman Hota was in his tent, for no more than a few minutes."

Now even Hikoshu was left speechless. That was beyond horrific—it was literally impossible. It would have required temperatures far hotter than any human, firebender or otherwise, could produce. And the size of the fire would have easily engulfed the tent as well as anyone close by. So he didn't feel alarmed or appalled so much as disbelieving.

"There has to be a mistake," he uttered. But how could there be? Atua's morbid gaze said the same thing. No one could be that mistaken. If Atua had heard the information from a reliable source—and as chief, he surely had—then there was no doubting the story. Hota was burned alive by someone. Or something.

"No damage to the tent, I presume?" Kinu had regained his composure, assuming his casual tone once more. "Talismans untouched?"

"Nothing was touched," Atua agreed somberly. "Except a buffalo-yak's head, which was found beside his remains."

"That's used in the late fall ceremonies to hide from spirits." It was Natquik's first words in the conversation, as he tried—and failed—to mimic Kinu's disinterested posture. Instead, he leaned forward unconsciously. "He thought he was going to be attacked by a spirit?"

"It seems possible. And it's the reason I've called you three." Now to the point of business, Atua seemed to turn more comfortable, as he folded a leg toward his chest so that he could balance his arm on his knee. "Hota's death is so bizarre, so unnatural, that clan leader Elu is uncertain how to calm the concerns of his clan. There are growing rumors of a curse on the village, and they've already buried Hota's tent to ward off whatever attacked him."

Atua paused, then, rubbing his hand across his cheek, as if confronting a fitful thought. "Elu has asked me to give a decision on Hota's death, hoping perhaps that my words may reassure his people before they become scared enough to abandon the village during the storms."

"And what do you plan to tell them?" Kinu seemed to rethink his decision not to eat, taking a piece of tiger-seal tongue. Yet to Hikoshu's confusion, he simply rubbed the meat along his fingers, greasing his knuckles.

"Whatever you can find out for me."

"You want us to investigate his death?" Natquik said, drawing Hikoshu's attention away from Kinu's ministrations with the meat. "How can we?"

"We need to know his exact manner of death, which I leave up to you, Natquik." Atua had turned authoritarian, his blue-gray eyes not only demanding but expecting to be obeyed. "As our eminent healer, I imagine that won't be too difficult." Natquik's expression said otherwise. "Kinu, I need you to find out why the wards in his tent didn't work, as well as why he was targeted. And Hikoshu,"—now Atua looked to him—"I need you to find out who or what this spirit was."

"I…I suppose I can." Caught offguard, Hikoshu could only come up with a half-hearted response that seemed to satisfy Atua, anyway. What exactly did the chief expect him to do? So startled was he at the assignment, Hikoshu didn't even hear as Atua continued his instruction, his mind dwelling on the request. Did he want him to speak to the spirits, or confront the murderous spirit directly? Not that it made much difference; Hikoshu wasn't sure if he could do either. As Avatar, his responsibilities seemed limited to two things: learn how to bend, eventually save the world. And up until that point, no one had really asked him to do much else. Sure, the occasional task—like saving Water Tribe Princesses—would arise, but he'd never had to convene with spirits.

He felt poorly prepared for the job.

Hikoshu was brought back to the meeting as Natquik once more spoke beside him. "The body's gone by now, Chief Atua, the tent buried, and the spirit most likely moved on. There's simply nothing that we can determine at this point."

Interrupted from his careful instruction, Atua frowned, the dark look adding a certain ferocity to his expression. "I understand there is nothing that can be done with Hota. However, that does not mean there is nothing that can be done about the situation." Looking up, he caught the eye of someone else, and Hikoshu turned to see that strange Shaman from earlier now standing at the door.

As the Shaman approached, Atua once more addressed them. "I've spoken to you about Hota's death, but there has been another attack, brought to my attention moments before your arrival. I'll let Shaman Utt explain what has happened."

Utt didn't even seat himself next to Atua, simply tugging his hood back to reveal a head of gray-speckled hair pulled tight into a caribou tail, his jowls loose with old age and wrinkles. His coat, marked with the tiger-seal fringe of a Shaman, also had a row of teeth sewn into its white mantel, though Hikoshu couldn't tell what kind of animal they came from. Squinting at them despite the rather dark room, Utt folded his hands into thick sleeves.

"Kiruk of the snow ocelot clan has died."

He paused to let them take in that news. And Hikoshu, despite his best attempts at a shocked reaction, found himself unimpressed. He didn't know most of the famous Southern Water Tribesmen, so the death meant nothing to him. Still, he tried to fake the same reserved horror and mournful respect that Kinu and Natquik had long ago mastered.

Satisfied, Utt continued. "He was sixty-years-old, long past the age of a great warrior but not so far past the age of a great leader." Another pause, as Utt savored the dramatic tension. "And his death was…abrupt."

"Come, Utt, just tell us how," Kinu said with some impatience, which obviously aggravated the other Shaman. Hiking up his shoulders proudly, he added extra gravity to his voice.

"Flayed alive while hunting."

A chilling silence followed the pronouncement. Burning to death did not scare Hikoshu; having one's skin physically removed, however, did. Suddenly, the penguin gizzards weren't entirely agreeing with him.

Next to him, Natquik was pressing for information. "Why was he alone?"

"He wasn't. He stepped away to relieve himself behind a snow bank. His hunting party found him shortly after."

"Any sign of who might have attacked him?" Kinu sounded just as casual as earlier, and Hikoshu began to wonder if anything ever made that detached façade crack.

"Nothing." Utt seemed to think this should garner the most horror, as he lowered his voice. "There were only his set of footprints. No struggle evident in the snow."

Atua interrupted before they could properly react, much to Utt's apparent irritation. "You now have two incidents of unexplained deaths. There has to be a pattern here, and I want you to find out what. Natquik, they still have the body; they've refused to bring it back into the village until a Shaman of this village cleanses it, and I want that to be you. Kinu, I need you to claim Kiruk's talismans and compare them to ones from Hota's tent. And yes"—he quickly cut off Kinu's forming question—"I want you to exhume the tent. Take five warriors with you."

Now that the frightening news was broken, Atua was assuming charge of the situation, his voice swift and efficient. "Hikoshu." Here, though, he hesitated, and it was obvious that Atua was slightly uncomfortable with commanding the Avatar. But the chief took it in stride, just as he took all of the other hundreds of tiny, daily affronts to his authority. "I can't really instruct you on what to do here. This is territory in which only Avatars are proficient."

"I can handle it," Hikoshu lied. Sure, he'd just stumble through it like he did everything else connected with Avatar powers. It'd work out. Probably.

Again, though, Atua seemed content with the answer. "Kinu, Natquik, you will have to leave soon in order to avoid the storms. Gather together what you need." After that, Atua continued to give instructions, including suggestions for what they would have to do once they arrived at the stone-frog village. They listened closely, Kinu offering his own suggestions, until each agenda seemed to be thoroughly planned. The meeting eventually ended on a somber note, with the chief wishing them luck on their tasks.

Natquik was still grumbling about his own task when they finally left the kashiq, his hands shoved into his pockets as he glowered at the well-tread snow below them.

"How can he possibly expect me to do this? I have lessons, and I haven't even chosen a successor. By the time I come back from the snow-ocelot village, it'll be time for me to leave." That, Hikoshu realized, was probably what was bothering him the most. "It's not like I can figure out much from a dead body, anyway. They don't have _chi_."

Hikoshu refrained from reminding him that this wouldn't be his first experience in working with the deceased. In fact, Natquik had done plenty to bring Hikoshu himself back from the dead. Quickly, he shoved the memory away. That had been many years ago, and just the thought of his past murder, as well as his bizarre resurrection, sent shudders through him. Yet always at moments like these, when he was confronted with death, those thoughts came unwillingly to the forefront of his mind.

"You don't have to figure out anything. Just cleanse the body." Hikoshu suppressed a shiver at the renewed wind and huddled deeper into his coat. "I imagine once I finally use my Avatar abilities to find the spirit, the matter will be cleared up in short order."

Natquik threw him a sidelong glance, roused from his brooding just long enough to look doubtful. "Can you honestly do that?"

"Chief Atua seems to think I can." The joke would have normally returned Natquik to his generally good humor, but he was intent on being moody today. "Doesn't any of this intimidate you just a little?"

"What?" Natquik asked, distracted.

"Two gruesome deaths, unexplainable by any natural means?" Hikoshu didn't bother to check his voice; it was well past midday, the sun sinking below the horizon, and no sane person would be out in the encroaching night. They had the wide tracks between the ice huts to themselves. Around them, the faint glow of lamplights and fires reflected off icy doorsills, adding to their isolation in the chilly dusk. "I don't know about you, but that makes me a little nervous." Of course, he had first-hand experience with spirits, and he fought back another shiver that was not entirely due to the cold.

"We are surrounded by spirits," Natquik said, as his eyes remained on the dusty snow blowing around his boots. "Why should I be nervous about them?"

_Because they don't leave footprints_.

Hikoshu kept the thought to himself, choosing instead to change the subject. "Are you going to pick someone to replace you before we leave?"

"I guess I might have to." Natquik came to a stop in the snow, and Hikoshu realized they had reached his own hut. Natquik's was further on the edge of the village, as befitting a Shaman's demand for privacy. "You're planning to come with me?"

Hikoshu gave him a lopsided grin from below the fur edge of his parka. "If I don't leave this village soon, I'm going to go crazy. So I thought I'd join you, yes."

"Better tell Mayami this was your idea, or she'll blame me." His temper somewhat improved, Natquik returned the grin and waved as he started away. "Two days, Hikoshu. Pack warmly."

"I'm a firebender!" he retorted, though Natquik didn't respond, his back growing dark against the snow. In a moment, Hikoshu was alone, surrounded by the deep blue of a polar night.

The wind picked up around him, whispering with flurries as he glanced along the huts. Not a soul in sight, everyone hidden in their respective homes against the impending dark. And though the glow of firelight and the smell of smoke plumes filled the air, Hikoshu felt briefly that there was no one in the world but him.

So it seemed odd to him, as he glanced past his shoulder toward the empty thoroughfare, that he had the distinct impression he _wasn't _alone. Shaking his head, Hikoshu ducked to crawl through the door of his hut. The earlier conversation with Atua must have really gotten to him. Already, his mind was starting to play tricks, imagining things that weren't really there.

But still, while out in the road, he could've been certain he heard something like the faint crunching of snow, echoing below his own footsteps.

* * *

**A/N: **Thanks again to my beta, Inazuma Akai, for looking over this chapter, and thanks to you all for reading it!


	5. Ch 4: The Ice Grave

**Chapter 4 – The Ice Grave**

* * *

Hikoshu couldn't see much through the thin bone visor that covered his eyes, which blocked out the glaring white of the frozen terrain. But it wasn't really the visor that interfered with his vision so much as the endless cascade of snow, thrown up by the waterbender who propelled their sled through the banks.

It made him long for a polar dog sled team, which, if slower, at least flung less of the freezing white stuff back into his face. But Sokei, the clan leader, had insisted that the waterbending team would be faster. So he sat at the front of the high-walled sled, the bender standing behind him as his arms swung from one side to the other.

Natquik was somewhere to his right, though he'd lost track of exactly where. The dogless sleds were silent as they whisked along the ice, and the wind easily cut out any audible noises. It had left Hikoshu trapped in a blinding, deafening world of white. They had started early that morning, with the intent to reach the spot of the murder before midday, but already delays had caught up with them. Now, it was past noon, though Hikoshu only knew by the way his stomach growled. The sun was just as hidden as their partner sled.

Eventually, a shout arose from the other invisible sled, and his own began to slow. As it stopped, Hikoshu wiped flakes from the scarf around his mouth and nose, using the fur of his glove to scrape them from his visor. As soon as he could see, he immediately became disoriented again; they were lost in a sea of snowdrifts, and for the life of him, he could not tell what made these different from the identical drifts that towered behind them.

A moment later, Natquik was approaching his sled as he beat snow off his coat. "We're going to have to make the trek alone." His voice was muffled under a stretch of blue wool that covered his mouth, such that nothing was visible of his face but the bridge of his nose. Hikoshu probably looked just as ridiculous, and the blue cloth covering his own face had become wet with moisture from his breath.

"Without a guide?" They'd surely get lost. Natquik didn't seem concerned, finally pulling the scarf past his chin. His breaths immediately shot up in misty puffs, clinging to the fur lining of his hood.

"No one will go near the body until I've cleansed it. But I have a pretty good idea where it is."

Hikoshu didn't see how. In the week it'd taken for them to get there, the body had likely been buried under a mountain of snow. But Natquik had always had an uncanny sense of direction, even in places he'd never been before, and Hikoshu was sure if anyone could find a dead body in the middle of nowhere, it'd be his friend. The two drivers obviously weren't too worried about the issue; his driver was already pulling on his gloves, climbing out of one sled to join his partner in the other.

"Come on, let's get it over with." Natquik reached into the bottom of the sled and pulled out a blue leather satchel which he slung over his shoulder. "We'll be here till after dark at this rate." Grudgingly, Hikoshu clambered out of the sled and once more into the snow.

The landscape was an endless stretch of white, only interrupted by the stark blue of the sky and of the deep shadows cast across the rolling drifts. When the wind blew—as it often did in the weeks before the storms—ghostly waves of powdery snow swept off those hills and doused them in a fine spray. There was once a time that Hikoshu had never seen snow. He'd even wanted to see it, actually. Now, it was as common as dirt used to be, though he wished it was even half as stable; his bending barely kept him at the surface, his steps wide and awkward.

"Is it close?" Hikoshu gasped at one point, winded. Though the temperatures were well below freezing, sweat made the usually comfortable inner fur of his coat stick unpleasantly to his skin. It was dangerous to sweat in this kind of environment, but it was also hard to avoid it.

Standing on higher ground than him, a grey blemish on the brilliant background, Natquik looked back and shrugged. "Somewhere around here."

'Around here' actually meant another half-hour of searching. Though, Hikoshu supposed with the way they were making progress, it likely wasn't all that far. After some time, he glanced behind them, only to find a horizon that hadn't changed much in their journey.

"Are you sure you know which—" Hikoshu never finished the sentence as they rounded the base of a wide hill. And were immediately confronted with a monstrous ice statue, half-buried in snow.

It was a gorilla-mammoth, its heavy brow delicately carved from clouded ice as it glared at the landscape. Its massive chest and limbs were mostly hidden in the snow, and the hump of its back was swallowed by the hill leaning against it. Two thick tusks curved up toward the sky, ending in tips that caught the sun, creating bright pinpoints of light.

Hikoshu had seen miniature statues of gorilla-mammoths before, often carved from ivory and used to protect a boy through his first rite of passage. He guessed, then, this immense figure was protecting Kiruk through his final one.

"Alright," Natquik said as he dropped the satchel in the snow beside him, once more tugging down his scarf, "dig him up."

Hikoshu pulled off the bone visor to give him an incredulous look. "You want me to dig him out of the snow?" Natquik merely shrugged as he knelt and untied the flap of the satchel.

"Bending him out seems easier, but sure."

"And why can't you do it?" Something about disturbing a man's final resting place made Hikoshu's skin crawl, alarms sounding violently in his head.

"He's going to be pretty deep down by now. And I think we both know where my strength in bending lies." Then, glancing up from the satchel with an exaggerated frown, he added, "If I need to remind you, it's not in lifting two tons of snow."

"I can't believe you're using that as an excuse to get out of work." But he was right; they'd be there until morning, with Natquik handling it. So Hikoshu stuffed his gloves in his pockets and situated himself just below the arching tusks of the watchful beast. "Guessing he's buried here?"

Natquik was already focused on organizing his tools. "Probably."

Nodding to himself, Hikoshu turned back to the gorilla-mammoth. With the sun hitting it at just the right angle, that ambiguous glare seemed to be aimed squarely at him. As if it already knew what he was about to do.

Hikoshu did not like this. He'd had past experience with disturbing the final resting place of a body, and that did not end well, either. Unwillingly, his thoughts hovered on the memory the qu-dan, an ancient fortuneteller, whose mummified remains had oddly drawn him despite his misgivings. And when he'd opened the tiny jade box cradled in her withered fingers…

Shuddering, he pushed the morbid thought away and spread his feet apart to bend the snow. Until Natquik interrupted.

"Make sure not to bend him with it."

"Of course not." With some chagrin, Hikoshu straightened his knees a bit and twisted his arms down, then up. In response, the snow flew into the air, dusting both him and the statue, and blinding him for a moment. When it dissipated, a wide, shallow hole remained. Steeling himself, Hikoshu hopped into the basin, using airbending to soften his landing, then methodically began to shove the snow away in smaller sections.

The hard work of clearing snow luckily kept his mind off what he was doing. Though the worry kept intruding rudely, especially during the several, fear-inspiring moments when he thought he'd uncovered something. Then the moment would pass, as he realized it was just a ridge in the snow, or the shadow of a passing bird. And he would go back to digging, the gnawing doubts silenced for a few more minutes.

Still, by Hikoshu's standards, he could do little to make matters worse for Kiruk's spirit. The Fire Nation practiced cremation, believing that any physical remains on the mortal plane tethered the spirit to it. Even the Water Tribes disliked the idea of burying bodies, convinced the spirit lingered, unhappy, until its remains had been cast into the sea. Meaning that no matter who was right, they all agreed; there was no peace in this grave.

"How's it going down there?" Natquik stuck his head over the edge, his visor now removed.

"Well enough," Hikoshu grunted, bending with barely a glance at the waterbender.

"That's a pretty big hole. You sure you haven't missed him?"

"Now that you mention it, there _was _that skeleton I tossed out." The quip was supposed to be sarcastic, though Hikoshu couldn't be certain if it had come across. Beads of sweat were running past his ear, distracting him.

"Believe me," Natquik answered wryly, "you're not digging up a skeleton." Slightly disturbed, Hikoshu bended a handful of snow at his head.

Successfully revealing the edge of a smooth ice block below him.

He paused, stunned, and Natquik gave a thoughtful hum. "They probably sealed him in ice to deter predators. Bend the block up here."

Hikoshu was speechless. With every passing moment, the whole situation was growing increasingly morbid. If there was any spirit who had enough justification to come back and haunt the living, it'd be this one.

He didn't want to think about it. Nor did he particularly want to see it. Feeling the gaze of the gorilla-mammoth boring into the back of his neck, Hikoshu carefully removed the rest of the snow. As it fell away, he saw a dark form encased in the hazy green ice, hardly human in shape. In hurried anxiety, he lifted the block with waterbending and directed it out of the hole.

Above him, invisible behind the ledge, Natquik gave a low whistle moments later. "No wonder they wouldn't take him back to the village." At those words, Hikoshu considered just staying in the basin until he was finished.

Staving off his apprehension, he jumped out of the hole and nearly hit a tusk in the process. A brief brush with karma, he noted as he landed, snow shooting up in puffs around his feet. The sun had sunk since he'd begun working, and now the gorilla-mammoth's glower was gone, replaced with a grim complacency. Hikoshu studied it, burying his guilt, before he turned to Natquik.

He was crouched by the body, blocking the view of the dead man. Not for long, though; almost immediately, he moved, and Hikoshu discovered that he'd already melted away half the ice.

He wasn't quite sure what he'd expected the body to look like. The bodies of Fire Sages were wrapped when cremated, and the Air Nomads were like birds, disappearing without ceremony or eulogy. In fact, the only point of comparison he had was one Water Tribesman who had been lost in the blizzards two years ago. The man they brought back was nearly as white as the snow, his eyes closed and sunken.

This was the exact opposite of that.

It was certainly the shape of a human, though none of its features looked that way. Its torso slowly emerging from the ice, the corpse was a rust red and dried out like seal jerky, every contour of its wrinkled, shriveled form marking where a man's muscles had once been. The arms hovered over its chest, folded awkwardly and held suspended in the air by frozen tendons, and its fingers curled into thin, stick-like claws. More ghastly was its face, its skinless lips pulled back in a grimace to reveal clenched teeth. So hideous and pained was the expression that Hikoshu at first missed the fact that it no longer had ears or a nose—merely the holes where those features should have been.

It was both absurd and grotesque, comical in its parody of a man but also horrifying in its eerie similarities.

Hikoshu covered his mouth, coughing and gagging at the same time. As the body thawed under Natquik's bending, a smell surfaced—a stench that could be described as sweet except for the distinct odor of putrefaction. Even Natquik seemed revolted by it, turning his head away as he gasped.

"Burst bowel," he choked, yanking the scarf up around his mouth and nose. "Should clear out in a moment." The body was now mostly free from the ice, and it jerked to the left as it toppled on its side. Its crumpled legs stuck pathetically in the air, its feet curled inward toward the ghostly white tendons making up the soles. "No way to unstick him now. Might have to saw off the limbs."

That made Hikoshu gag once more.

Natquik didn't seem to notice how green Hikoshu must've looked, or how he had to bend a seat out of the snow because his knees didn't feel all that strong. The waterbender was too focused on twisting the body into a more malleable position, his hands moving indifferently over the softened abdomen. Once he found what he was looking for, he bended the snow into water around his palms, then placed one hand on the man's chest and the other on the right side of his stomach. Immediately, the water glowed blue.

No longer caring about freezing sweat, Hikoshu pulled his hood away. The sharp wind caught his half-tied hair and chilled his scalp, taking his mind momentarily off the obscene sight. Natquik was using healing techniques on something that had long ago lost the chance to be healed. And as he watched the waterbender touch the corpse with his bare hands, without a trace of the disgust that kept welling in Hikoshu's throat, he had to wonder how often Natquik did this sort of thing.

"Heart is fine," Natquik said, his eyes closed in concentration. Hikoshu knew he was just running through a list, rather than actually informing him of his progress. "Kidneys fine, spleen is ruptured, liver enlarged. Probably from freezing."

He was also obviously at a loss, Hikoshu noted dully. He was running through his list because that was essentially all he could do. Natquik followed the paths of _chi _like one might follow a map, giving him insight to practically every aspect of the human body. But what could he do without that _chi? _Simply examine the organs, as he did now. Work blindly, without any true understanding of what he was working on.

As Natquik kept up his pointless tally, Hikoshu's thoughts strayed elsewhere. The body still unnerved him, but he was quickly growing accustomed to the sensation. What now unnerved him most was the idea of whatever had done this. Except for its perverse stillness, frozen in some sort of final death throe, and its complete lack of skin, the body looked untouched. No cuts, no wounds, no missing extremities. No indication that this had been done with a knife, as Hikoshu expected. The flayed carcasses of animals had missing chunks of muscle and, if not drained first, bled everywhere. But there was no incision in the neck or thigh. No sign that this body had been drained, either.

The realization that there was no blood when the snow should've been bathed in it made his hair stand on end. Not that anything should surprise him anymore. Still, it was yet another strange clue—a stark lack of evidence that became evidence itself. Doubtfully, Hikoshu started to comment on it.

Then the corpse's eyes flew open.

Hikoshu gave a hoarse cry as he fell backwards, and was instantly on his feet, assuming a firebending stance. He was so close to torching the body, possibly anyone standing next to it, that for a brief moment, it was a foregone conclusion. His fear twisted his insides into an unmovable mass, and behind his eyes, the darkness of the Avatar State hovered.

Fortunately, Natquik's words filtered through the fog. "Sorry, bended them open. Trying to thaw out the brain."

The heavy cloak of the Avatar State slowly receded, as well as his terror. Shakily, Hikoshu crawled back onto his ice perch, tugging his hood over his ears. The Avatar State, when his emotions ran too high, occasionally loomed. But even the threat of it was a rare event, and he hadn't entered it in nearly five years. So it didn't bother him nearly as much as the thought of the dead man coming back to life, along with the thought of how close he'd come to setting Natquik on fire.

"There's no blood." Hikoshu hated how unsteady his voice sounded, but Natquik was too focused on his examination to notice. "There should be at least a trace, even if they moved him. His muscles should be seeping."

Reaching the end of his search, Natquik slowly straightened and pulled the scarf down. The look he gave Hikoshu was both bemused and troubled. "There's no blood inside him, either. At least no fluid blood. I'd have to open him up to say for certain." Hikoshu knew neither of them was interested in that idea.

"So your conclusion on what killed him?"

"Shock. And, well…not having any blood. Can't be certain which killed him first, as I don't know if he lost all of his blood before or after his skin was magically ripped off."

Those words hung awkwardly on the air, just about as chilly and miserable as the wind-driven snow. They sat facing each other, Hikoshu cross-armed while Natquik wiped his hands unconsciously on his coat. Next to them, nearly between them, the grimacing corpse stared wide-eyed at the empty blue sky, as if both screaming and laughing at something only it could see.

Suddenly, Hikoshu wanted nothing more than to leave.

But Natquik still had to perform the cleansing rites, which meant that Hikoshu had to sit patiently through them. Even after half a decade, he hadn't learned all of the Water Tribe rituals. Cleansing, reserved only for the vilest people or for the vilest deaths, was one of them. It was a practice that every Shaman knew, particularly the healers. And Natquik, though possibly never having done one before, moved through it seamlessly. Drums, string rattles of hippo-whale bone, some strange brown substance that he chewed and then spat out—these were employed over the body with equal care, while Natquik hummed some sort of unmelodic tune in his throat. The ritual, an hour later, ended with a symbolic bath, which basically involved Natquik bending water over the dead body.

Still, the gentle shower of half-rain, half-snow looked graceful on the wind, sprinkled on frozen muscles. And even if the corpse hardly looked more peaceful, Hikoshu felt a little more at peace himself.

The weather had seemed to improve, as well, though that might have simply been Hikoshu's mood. When they both got to their feet, Natquik swinging the re-packed satchel over his shoulder, the wind didn't seem to hammer them so insistently. And the gorilla-mammoth didn't seem so cruel in its anger over its lost charge. They left wordlessly, retracing their steps back to the sleds.

Behind them, the body lay in the snow, still caught in that lonely, terrifying moment when the world had turned so horribly wrong.

* * *

**A/N: **Thanks as always to my most excellent beta, Inazuma Akai!


	6. Ch 5: Phantoms in the Water

**Chapter 5 - Phantoms in the Water**

* * *

The former warrior Kiruk was given a proper burial three days later, after the warriors had returned his body and the women had dressed it with thick caribou-elk furs. Natquik had wanted to leave immediately, but the clan leader Sokei asked them to stay. After all, as he said, it was a rare and fortuitous circumstance that a great warrior like Kiruk could be honored with the presence of an Avatar at his funeral. And though Hikoshu wanted to give Natquik a little more time with his family before he headed North—and though the tribesmen glared at Hikoshu with a general dislike only reserved for firebenders and lazy hunters—he finally relented.

Natquik, of course, wasn't going to leave him. So the snow-ocelot clan had two distinguished guests: the Avatar and the future consort of the Northern Water Tribe Princess.

Perhaps that was why the three days were filled with something close to celebration. It was a tribute to Kiruk's life, held in high esteem despite the questionable manner of his death. As if Natquik's cleansing had removed any kind of evil that had permeated his body, he was now cheered as a hero, remembered for all of the good he'd done for the people of the village.

Kiruk was hidden from sight those three days, as feasts were held in the kashiq and music and dancing lasted well toward dawn. Initially, the clanspeople were hesitant to include Hikoshu in the celebrations—as Southern Water Tribesmen so often were when around firebenders—but by the end of the first day, helped by Natquik's usual popularity, he was merely the Avatar to them. And then he hardly slept at all.

The end of the third day, however, the mood abruptly swung the opposite direction. Where there had been food and drink the night before, there was nothing to eat. And where there had been plays portraying Kiruk's greatest deeds, there was now only the beat of one, somber drum. Five men carried his body in an umiuk that he had sewn himself, and as the warriors passed, the women began to wail and the men let their spears fall into the snow. By the time they reached the edge of the village, they were followed by a dull cacophony of sorrow.

The bearers were headed for the ocean, a two day walk from the village. It would have been faster if they had used sleds, but that would not have honored Kiruk's strength. So they carried the boat on their shoulders and other warriors followed on polar-dog sleds. They would relieve any man who tired so that the boat never touched land again.

Hikoshu had come to learn a lot about Kiruk in those three days, such that the final march to the sea seemed a tragic denouement. As a young man, Kiruk had been a great navigator in the North. Now he would be navigating the seas alone. But Hikoshu didn't have much time to appreciate the poignancy—Natquik was growing more anxious by the day. So after the men had left and the remaining tribesmen retreated to their homes for the ceremonial three days of no labor, they instead made their formal yet hasty farewells to the clan leader.

Two weeks after first leaving their own village, Natquik and Hikoshu finally returned, tired and with no more answers than when they departed. Kinu had apparently beaten them back. He'd spoken to the warriors on the hunting trip with Kiruk and determined that there had been no talismans, with no need to see the body. So he had also left long before the wake was underway, and by the time Hikoshu and Natquik had returned, he was already gone to check on Hota.

Chief Atua was clearly disappointed by their lack of news. Frowning deeply, he leaned back on his hands and considered them from across the fur rug, his thick brows furrowed and his bone jewelry clinking. The kashiq, just as before, was empty except for them, though this time they weren't treated to a meal.

"I was hoping you would have some evidence of _how_ the death occurred, or some idea of what kind of spirit was involved."

"A really ugly and jealous spirit?" Natquik joked as he sipped some tundra-beat tea, though Atua didn't seem amused. "I don't know. Probably not a _savaggat_, I would wager. Maybe an _adlet_, with the missing blood…"

"Perhaps a _kilatilik_?" Atua suggested, and Natquik shook his head, the beads of his plaited hair knocking against his cup.

"Like I said, probably not a _savaggat_. Besides, only Hota was a Shaman."

Hikoshu was thoroughly confused. There were some things in the Water Tribes that remained untranslated, as if only the Water Tribe language could properly describe them. Some words, like kashiq, were so unique to the tribes that they couldn't be defined outside of their language. Other words, like the names of demons, were thought to have power and were only spoken in oblique ways. That usually meant they couldn't be translated very well.

Otherwise, Hikoshu would interpret 'savaggat' as 'one whose hands have knives.' And he suspected that was hardly what a _savaggat_ was.

So he listened with the same detached interest as he always did when tribespeople would slip into their native tongue. The Water Tribes spoke both languages fluently, occasionally changing mid-sentence and losing him in the process. It had such a unique timbre, such a strange way of rolling over the syllables. Almost like the words came from the back of their throats. But as curious as Hikoshu was, he still could barely follow a conversation in the Water Tribe tongue, and so he sipped his tea quietly as they ran through a list of oddly-named spirits.

A half-hour later, and they had seemed to exhaust the possibilities. Wearily, they lapsed into silence, fiddling with their cups and staring at their folded legs with heavy thoughts. Hikoshu, on the other hand, had somehow found a much happier subject to dwell on—Mayami had peeked through the high-set window at one point during the meeting and grinned at him. And though he knew better than to return the grin, he stared up at the window longingly well after she'd disappeared.

"And you, Hikoshu? Have you fared better?"

The question caught him off-guard, causing him to look back with almost guilty surprise. "I'm sorry?"

"Have you tried to make contact with the spirit?" Atua's level voice held a hint of impatience, as if he predicted what Hikoshu's answer would be.

"I'm…working on it. It's often hard to sort through the information that spirits give." Honestly, he hadn't contacted any yet. But it was probably true, as he never had much luck getting information from Avatar Sidhari. The previous Avatar would tell him it was for his own good. That he needed to learn from his own mistakes. Though often, thought Hikoshu ruefully, he ended up learning from hers.

But Sidhari obviously wouldn't help much with this situation. With an unconcerned, if perhaps a little too eager, smile, he shrugged his shoulders, and Atua's own shoulders slumped with disappointment.

"Well, then, let me know whatever you find out, whenever you find out."

After they made their escape from Atua's inquiries, Hikoshu looked forward to the opportunity to escape Natquik, as well, and find more pleasant company. Namely Mayami, who—he noted with some regret—was not waiting outside the kashiq for him.

Natquik, however, precluded his attempt by grabbing his arm, pulling him alongside him as they trudged through the early afternoon snow. "Not so fast. Didn't you hear Atua?"

Hikoshu supposed he hadn't. "Um…which part?"

Natquik didn't express irritation, or even surprise, at his obvious ignorance. Then again, he'd grown used to Hikoshu's painfully short attention span. Instead, he tugged Hikoshu forward, refusing to acknowledge his reluctance. "Kinu's already back from the stone-frog clan. He's waiting for us at the old ice dug-out."

That was across the lake. Despite his desire to find Mayami, Hikoshu felt his curiosity piqued. "Why there?"

"He brought back some talismans from Hota's tent." Natquik looked at him askance, and Hikoshu could detect a hint of impatience; obviously Atua had already gone over this. "The chief didn't want them inside the village."

"Are they dangerous?"

"Don't know. I suppose he wants us to find out."

Exhausted and weary from two weeks of traveling, Hikoshu had absolutely no interest in making the long trek out past the lake. Nor did he really want to dwell on the eerie deaths for another afternoon. Such thoughts had haunted him since the day they carried away Kiruk the Warrior, and for just a few hours, he wanted to enjoy the distracting company of Mayami, whom he hadn't seen in so long.

But he didn't have much choice. Atua wanted their—and more specifically, his—input on the matter of the talismans, and Shaman Kinu would wait until they arrived. Thus Hikoshu eventually found himself tromping through the vast white terrain of the frozen lake, his hands tucked into his pockets as he sulked over the course of events. This far from the village, the landscape was empty, and only an occasional cloud blocked the sun. During those brief moments, when dark shapes scuttled across the smooth, unending surface of the snow-blanketed lake, Hikoshu felt a little bit gloomier. As he always did when he couldn't see the sun.

His petulant mood, however, didn't deter Natquik from talking. "You know, you could've just been honest with Atua." He walked a few steps ahead, not weighed down by the same unhappy thoughts as Hikoshu's. His hood pulled tight around his head, he didn't bother to look back as he spoke. "Why didn't you admit you haven't even tried to communicate with the spirits yet?

Hikoshu roused himself from pouting. "Well, I'm sure in a couple of days' time, that _will_ be an honest answer. Just as soon as I figure out how."

"You certainly can't drag your feet for much longer."

"Speaking of which, when are you heading north?" Hikoshu was probably being snide, but this day was rotten thus far, and as they'd unlikely be back to the village before dusk, there wasn't any hope of it improving, either.

Natquik slowed so he could catch up, and Hikoshu finally noticed the slump of his shoulders, as well as the barely perceptible somber note in his hooded face. He wondered briefly if his comment had provoked that reaction.

Yet when he answered, he didn't acknowledge Hikoshu's quip. "Do you think Pama would be a good healing instructor?"

"Pama? I didn't even know she could heal."

"Well, I've narrowed it down to either her or Liensho."

Hikoshu grimaced. "Liensho smells like pork fat. And she talks to herself under her—"

Natquik suddenly straightened, coming to a halt in the shallow tracks left by his boots. "Stop talking." The response took Hikoshu aback, as he paused beside him.

"Sorry. I guess that was kind of cru—"

"Stop talking," he repeated, this time a little more harshly. Under the trim of his hood, his somber expression had faded, and now there was a certain tension to his eyes. A stiffness, as if he didn't dare to move his head. "Feel that?" He'd trained his gaze on the snow below their feet, and with some apprehension, Hikoshu studied it, too.

"Feel what?"

"The ice has thinned out here."

"Huh?"

"The lake." Now he was kneeling, brushing the fine snow away to reveal dark green ice below. "I felt it when we were walking. We're on a thin spot."

"You sure?" Hikoshu said, then lowered his voice as Natquik sharply hushed him. "We're into winter, and we're near the shore. The ice has to be at least a foot thick."

"Not anymore." Wiping off his hands, Natquik stood. "Just be careful how you walk until we're off of it."

Easy enough. Hikoshu was an airbender, and lighter on his feet than most men half his size. With little effort, he held himself partly on the air, his stomach fluttering as his weight seemingly disappeared. Next to him, Natquik started forward with careful, measured steps, his eyes focused on the snow as he judged each spot to place his foot.

Hikoshu, on the other hand, felt practically no concern over the ice, his feet quick and his attention half-straying. He had a surprising number of fears, as he'd be the first to admit. Being dunked in ice water, fortunately, wasn't one of them. There was something comforting about the fact he had three elements at his aid, which robbed him of the same cautious anxiety that drove his friend. It was such an odd reversal of roles that Hikoshu couldn't help but gloat in it.

"Want me to carry you?" he said mirthfully, turning to walk backwards. Already, he was several paces ahead, and Natquik shot him a look of strained patience.

"Don't get cocky."

That made him grin even more broadly, his voice full of his returning good humor. "Honestly, I am shocked—_shocked_, I say—to hear that coming from y—"

The ice broke.

Hikoshu plunged into the lake so quickly that he didn't even realize he'd fallen in; there was a hollow, cracking noise, and suddenly, everything was blurry and muffled and _cold. _Water shot up his nose and clogged his ears, while his hands stuck out reflexively to grab onto anything that might hold him. His mind, stunned by the frigid temperature, briefly froze, and for a moment, Hikoshu was abandoned to primitive instinct, his throat spasming as he tried to inhale and cough at the same time.

Then, realizing the urgency of the situation, his better sense kicked in, and he swum with numb fingers back to the surface. Gasping, he seized the ice shelf in his gloved hands to hold himself above the waves, but the ice broke and deposited him back into the water.

"Help me out of here," he said, his voice hoarse as he continued to cough. The air was almost as cold as the lake, and Hikoshu had to fight back involuntarily shudders. Natquik, somewhere behind him, didn't answer. "Fine, you've enjoyed your laugh. Now give me a hand." Only sullen silence.

With a heave, Hikoshu bended himself out, using both waterbending and airbending to roll himself to a more stable part of the ice. Burdened by his sodden coat, he lay there for a moment, staring at the sky, then slowly got to his feet. Only to discover that Natquik was not there.

"Natquik?" In fact, he was nowhere. Uneasily, Hikoshu scanned the lake. Dark water lapped where the ice had broken, angry black fissures marring the white, and their footsteps in the snow led up to it. But no footsteps led away; the horizon was empty.

Hikoshu shivered. "Stop kidding around. I'm freezing and I need to change." The wind alone answered him, scattering tiny flurries on the slowing waves. "Natquik?"

He knew it had to be a trick—Natquik trying to lure him into looking for him. But the more he considered the prank, the more uncharacteristic it seemed of his friend, and the more panicked Hikoshu became. Natquik was a capable enough waterbender that falling in should have posed no problem. But he also wasn't the kind of person to put himself through life-threatening cold just for a good laugh.

Pulling off his gloves with a certain amount of haste, Hikoshu squatted and inched his way back toward the hole. "If this is a joke, and you make me come in after you…!" It was an empty threat; Hikoshu was already convinced this wasn't simply a joke.

As he slid back into the water, more ice broke under him, and Hikoshu gasped again at the abrupt temperature change. He needed a moment to prepare himself, with several large, deep breaths that barely calmed his nerves. Then, taking a final breath, Hikoshu plunged underwater.

It was _cold_. So cold. Cold enough that he'd already lost sensation in his legs, his arms, and other more important parts. So cold that it felt like a painful band had wrapped around his chest, trying to squeeze the air out of him. Struggling, Hikoshu held his breath, and searched the underwater scene with eyes that were starting to hurt from the exposure.

Nothing. The world, partly hidden in shadow, was a dark grey that was barely visible near the ice. Sunlight streamed in rays from the hole above him, creating faint tracks of bronze that were quickly swallowed. Below his feet, it was pure black, like the darkest night, and his heart beat faster at the thought that Natquik might have slipped down there.

It wouldn't do any good to consider that option. Not right now, at least. Forcing himself to concentrate, Hikoshu turned in a small circle, his frozen hands treading numbly at the water. Among the shimmering currents floated strange silhouettes that could have been fish or human; they were just too indistinct and the light too poor to tell. They were also far too far away for him to explore, requiring more time than he actually had. Desperate, and with his chest aching, Hikoshu paddled up to the surface to get a second wind.

His head encountered ice. Blinking in surprise, he craned his neck back, but where he'd expected to find his previous hole, the lake was completely frozen over. A solid sheet blocked him from air, and in disbelief, Hikoshu ran his hands over it.

No cracks, no flaws. As if the ice hadn't broken at all. Stupefied, he pushed against it, and as pain lanced through his chest, panic quickly followed. He'd been frozen under the surface, with no escape. He was going to drown if he didn't get out immediately. A few bubbles escaped his nose in his newfound terror, and scrambling, he clawed at the ice.

It took Hikoshu several tense moments to find a center of peace, especially without the breaths he'd usually need to calm down. But battling with some hidden part that raged on the edge of the Avatar State, he managed to reason with himself. He could bend his way out of this, if need be. He simply had to stay in control.

Feeling a little less apprehensive, Hikoshu planted his palms flat against the ice, and started to bend it away. It was only a fleeting shape, just on the edge of his blurry vision, that caught his attention and stopped him from leaving. Something that tugged at his mind, even as his spine trembled and his lungs cried for air.

It was a shadow. No, a person. A human, either man or woman, that clutched the ice as if he too were in danger of drowning. The dim green light played off of his silhouette, highlighting the furs of a Water Tribe coat, filtering through black, unbound hair that writhed around his head. It wasn't Natquik, he was certain, but Hikoshu couldn't really tell who it was—his face was pressed against the ice, as if kissing it. Or as if his body had begun to float.

Suddenly, everything was deathly still. All of his physical concerns—the cold, the numbness, the suffocating pain—disappeared as he watched the person gently bob with unseen currents. The shadow of a cloud passed over then, swamping the figure in darkness. Yet the stranger didn't move, only his hair dancing around his head, and Hikoshu wondered for a moment if he was even alive.

The underwater scene was lonely and grim, overwhelming in despair. Hikoshu felt a twinge of his protective instinct—of a sudden drive to save this person—while at the same time, some quiet voice told him the person was too far gone to be saved.

And during it all, the person clung to the bottom of the ice, fingers dug in, knees inexplicably balanced against it.

Hikoshu made up his mind, then. Whether or not that person was alive, he had to know. While some part of him screamed that this was a very bad idea, he started to swim toward the figure, his chest giving up in its fight for air.

He was interrupted as something reached up from the empty darkness below and grabbed his foot.

Hikoshu choked, and immediately the air rushed out of him in a blinding wave of bubbles as terror seized his heart. Whatever it was, it was pulling, and Hikoshu floundered as he kicked at the unseen threat. Above him, the ice sped away, and below, the dark void engulfed him. Losing his sense of direction, he fought desperately to waterbend with hands that he could no longer feel.

Then, just as quickly, the calm of the Avatar State was there. It was a calm he'd been studiously avoiding throughout this ordeal, worried about the consequences. But now, he embraced it. Invited its darkness in as his last chance to save himself from the encroaching abyss of the lake. The comforting warmth swamped him, and he gladly surrendered his control for the help he desperately needed. In that brief, unguarded moment, between a state of order and a state of raw power, Hikoshu reflexively inhaled.

It was then that the calm of the Avatar State faded, ripped away by a surge of panic. The cold caved in on him, the darkness collapsed, and in that moment, Hikoshu drowned.

* * *

**A/N: **Sorry for the delay on this one. I had to change a lot of things. Don't think it'll take me as long on the next. As always, thanks to my beta reader, Inazuma Akai, for her hard work!


	7. Ch 6: A Reminiscent Breeze

**Chapter 6 - A Reminiscent Breeze**

* * *

Fireflies danced behind Hikoshu's eyelids, and somewhere through a thick fog, someone was kissing him.

_Mayami, _his mind whispered. The tender kiss, long and insistent, warmed him just as her warm breath tickled his cheek, and his body was suffused with heat. There in the sea of darkness, he floated languidly, as memories of late summer evenings on his old island home returned to him. Nights under butter-nut palms, the surf-washed sand swallowing his feet. And in the dense forest behind him, fireflies hummed on unfelt winds.

But then Mayami pulled away; her arms released him, and her lips disappeared, leaving a cold, harsh imprint in their place. That cold quickly flooded through him, tearing away his tranquil memories and scouring his limbs until only the most painful sensations remained. Now caught in the icy fog of a lonely darkness, Hikoshu could hear someone speaking.

"He's not breathing, Natquik!" That wasn't Mayami's voice. Mayami's voice was low, filled with implication even at her most innocent moments. This voice was nasally, higher-pitched. And petrified.

Natquik's voice answered her. "No, he's breathing! Just give him some room."

Not-Mayami moved further away, and suddenly the ice that had set his teeth on edge stabbed through his chest.

_So cold_. More recent memories returned to him, but not as quickly as the frigid air that rushed down his throat, into his lungs, his stomach. In mere seconds, everything in him froze; it was with effort he pried his eyelids open. As Hikoshu winced at the unbearable brightness, his chest suddenly clenched, and the hoarse coughs that seized him were strong enough to lift his back off the ice.

"There, he's waking up," Natquik said with some relief. In response, thin fingers clasped his cheeks. He imagined they were warm, but his skin was so numb that he didn't register their heat. The touch was comforting, though, and his uncontrollable coughing slowly subsided.

"Hikoshu," Not-Mayami murmured. Weakly, he forced his eyes open again, and the woman above him came into focus.

Hikoshu was surprised to discover that the earnest face peering into his did not belong to any woman of the Water Tribe; she was an Air Nomad. Somewhat older than in his memory, she wasn't far past her mid-twenties, her hairline cut high to reveal the prominent blue arrow tattoo of her people. Her smoky-gray eyes were filled with tears, and Hikoshu marveled at the number of times he'd awoken in this woman's arms to find her expression set in that same look of terror and grief.

For this woman, Miyo, had been his best friend of some seven years, and had been with him through nearly every major event of his life. She had been with him through his airbending training, through the death of his former firebending master, Sage Yojing. She had even been his first love, when they were both younger and more inclined toward brief, if passionate, infatuations.

Now she'd returned, after a year of absence, and as his body ached from invisible, icy needles, his heart ached at seeing her again.

Gently, she petted his cheek with white fingers, her brow wrinkling that large arrow. "Hikoshu?"

He tried to speak. But just as he opened his mouth, a shudder tore through his spine, and his jaw clamped shut over the words. Instead, his throat emitted a small whine, feeble and unrecognizable.

"Come on, you've got to warm yourself up."

Hikoshu rolled his eyes around to spy Natquik, who spoke above his head. He'd expected the waterbender to be just as wet and freezing, but Natquik looked dry. And very thankful, only his mouth still holding traces of worry. "Get some fire moving," he continued, pushing Hikoshu up into a sitting position.

Hikoshu's stomach screamed in pain and resisted the movement. "C-c-can't bend. Too co-old." How he choked out those words, he couldn't guess.

"Firebenders can't bend when they're too cold, Natquik," Miyo said in unnecessary explanation, rising to her knees.

Just behind Hikoshu's shoulder, Natquik answered wryly. "You can stop impressing me with those insightful observations."

"Then start impressing me with yours." She reached forward to grab the hem of Hikoshu's coat, and gave it a great tug to pull it over his head. Hikoshu's arms didn't want to respond, the muscles painfully cramped, the joints locked, but working it upward, she managed to divest him of the parka.

It was then he realized that _she_ was wet. Her usually full, long brown hair now hung in wet clumps about her face, and the yellow fabric of her habit was plastered to her body. Unlike him, though, she didn't seem to notice the cold, the lake water evaporating from her skin in faint wisps of steam.

Hikoshu was still considering why she herself was soaked when suddenly the world went from cold to _burning_. He gasped through his nose, his jaw still uncooperative, and his whole body shrank from the exposure. A moment later, Natquik stuffed his own coat over Hikoshu's head, the world now muffled.

"…hurts worse when you bend someone dry," Natquik was saying when his head emerged from the fur trim of the collar. "The water takes all the remaining heat with it."

Hikoshu could certainly attest to that, though the burning sensation was already fading, and his now-dry feet had begun to tingle inside his boots. Huddled in the depths of the buffalo-yak coat, he eyed Natquik as the last vestiges of the icy fog began to fade.

With each passing moment, it was becoming easier to think. But it was still hard to move, and Natquik had to haul him to a stand with Miyo's help. "Let's get him somewhere warm," the waterbender said, carrying his weight by wedging an arm under his shoulder.

Trying hard to staunch his shivers, Hikoshu could now see where he had fallen in. The black, ugly mark was still there, water still lapping at the ice. It looked as if nothing had changed since when the ice first broke. The fact that it was so jarringly different from what he remembered—from the panic he felt as he scrabbled at the frozen surface above his head—sent another, involuntary shiver through him.

Walking along the lake to spare Hikoshu the misery of flying, Miyo's bison carried them back to the village. No one spoke for the journey, which prevented Hikoshu from asking the million questions he had. Such as where Miyo had come from, and who this strange bison belonged to. Or, more importantly, what had happened at the lake. But because Miyo had to guide the bison, and because Natquik wouldn't tolerate any over-exertion on his part, Hikoshu was compelled to stew in silence. So he hid in a corner of the saddle and worked hard on controlling his body temperature.

With the benefit of Natquik's coat, Hikoshu managed to get his core warm enough to bend heat to his fingers. The curse of firebending was that losing one's internal heat almost invariably resulted in losing one's bending altogether. It was an unfortunate weakness, but the trade-off was that he rarely lost the use of his element otherwise. And all it took was just a little bit of warmth for a master firebender to come back from the cold.

By the time they reached the lakeshore, flames danced along Hikoshu's fingertips.

Instead of the healing huts, Natquik chose to take them to his own home. Perhaps because, as Shaman, his hut was located on the periphery of the village and thus much closer to the lake. Perhaps because he wanted to avoid prying eyes. Natquik didn't give his reasoning, as he ushered him through the narrow-arched doorway. In mere moments, Hikoshu was stripped to his waist and lying on a thick, wide kelp mat in the center of the round room.

"I told you I'm fine," he muttered obstinately, as Natquik's glowing hands—a shimmering blue-white—traced slow circles on his stomach. "I got too cold, and I inhaled a little water. That's all." His chest still hurt from the ordeal, as if his lungs had been scraped with pumice.

"Yeah, well, given how long you were under, you can't blame me for not taking chances." Natquik's eyes were closed in concentration, but his tone was scolding.

Then there was a long silence, as Natquik examined him for some harm that wasn't there, and Hikoshu examined his friend's home. The fire pit next to them was empty; Natquik hadn't even bothered with a fire, though Hikoshu could've easily lit one for him. Nearby, a low-set rope cot served as his bed, furs haphazardly hanging from its wood frame.

The rounded walls were disguised under leather hides, which were decorated with blue-and-black shapes that he knew Natquik didn't do because he knew how artistically challenged his friend really was. There were symbols of his clan, the leopard-yak, represented by a serrated circle superimposed on three Vs. A diamond chain that zig-zagged across another thin, gray hide represented the legend of a giant jetsam snake that slithered over the Pole and created the snow ridges in its wake. Then, of course, the trout-crow—the symbol of his father's clan, long revered as the clan of the Rain Spirit, which was on a pelt hidden behind a hole-riddled kayak that Natquik kept swearing he'd repair someday. Everything else in the tent was fairly practical: pots of salted meat and fishing tackle, drying racks and an ice chest for clothing.

Conspicuously missing were the emblems of Natquik's trade. None of the spiritual objects special to the Shamanic healers hung from the ceiling, nor was there any sign of the ritual pots of herbs or strained jujube wine that were ubiquitous in the healing huts. Natquik hadn't been Shaman long enough to amass the kind of collection other Water Shamans enjoyed; thus, strictly speaking, his home was rather empty.

In his survey of the room, Hikoshu's gaze eventually landed on Miyo. She still stood near the entryway, as if afraid to come in, her eyes focused on Natquik's bending with an almost sick horror. She clutched her arms weakly, her back to the wall, and Hikoshu felt a pang of guilt that she had to watch this. He knew the kind of ghosts that Natquik's healing must have conjured in her; there were some wounds time had not yet mended.

Unable to meet her stare, Hikoshu turned back to Natquik in order to study him instead. Noting, again, how dry he was. "Where did you go, anyway?" He hated how scratchy his voice still sounded.

"Hmm?" Natquik didn't look up, still devoted to his task. Under his hands, Hikoshu's skin prickled unpleasantly.

"When I crawled out of the lake. I didn't see you anywhere."

Natquik stopped bending then, and the expression he wore was perplexed. Frowning, he glanced to Miyo, whom Hikoshu realized had turned a light shade of green.

She shook her head, her hand over her mouth.

"You never came up." Natquik wiped off his palms on his trousers and sat back. His coat now missing, he scratched uncomfortably at a loose copper-bone necklace, his gaze never leaving Miyo. "I went underwater to look for you three times before Miyo finally arrived. She searched for you twice before she found you and pulled you out."

Hikoshu lay in puzzled silence as he considered this. Did he become disoriented? Did he swim away from the hole? No, he'd only jumped into the water. Yet how did the ice get above him? How did he not see Miyo? "I was only under for a few seconds. I swam straight back to the surface."

Incredulous, Natquik stared at him, but it was Miyo's tremulous voice that answered.

"Hikoshu. You were gone for half an hour."

**xxXxxxXxxXxxxXxx**

Miyo couldn't stay with them, which was a bit of a relief for Hikoshu. She needed to take care of her bison—Tehsa, apparently, though she refused to explain where the animal came from. Hikoshu, in turn, needed to talk to Natquik, and while he wanted to be with Miyo, he didn't really want to worry her, either.

Natquik's healing hadn't done much, as Hikoshu hadn't thought it would. Despite the fact he'd apparently spent an entire half-hour submerged, Hikoshu didn't feel particularly bad. He continued to cough roughly, his throat raw from the lake water he'd swallowed, but it was only a little annoying—hardly what he'd expect from such an ordeal.

Natquik couldn't really believe it, either, his mouth quirked in a baffled purse as Hikoshu pulled on his gray inner-robe. "I've heard of men surviving that long in ice water, but…well, they usually don't bounce back this quickly." He'd started up a fire in the meantime, the mixture of driftwood and dung producing an almost foul smoke and creating a haze among the fire-skins scattered along the ceiling.

Hikoshu wanted to point out, again, that his recovery was perfectly normal for someone who was only briefly underwater, but it wasn't much use. If both Natquik and Miyo said he had never resurfaced, then he supposed he hadn't.

"So you went into the lake three times?"

"Around that." He was searching behind the hides for something. Natquik often had trouble keeping track of his possessions, particularly in his hut. "Like I said, after you fell through, I jumped in and looked for a good three minutes. Then I came back up. Back in and up, in and up. No sign." With a soft 'ah' of discovery, he produced a long stick, nearly his height, from behind a musty old pelt. "About the time I collapsed from the exposure, Miyo showed up." He swung the stick about him with a flourish.

Hikoshu leaned back to dodge, though he was well out of reach of the pole. "Miyo flew in out of nowhere?" Nodding, Natquik headed for the center of the room, just beside the fire, and bended a stool of ice from the hut floor to carry him to the ceiling.

"She apparently found out from Atua where we were headed and thought she'd come surprise us." He then used the end of the stick to push open the thin leather flap that covered the smoke hole. "And I got to give her credit—no one could've been more surprised than me."

"Same here." Hikoshu wiggled on his coat as Natquik returned to the floor. "Especially when I woke up to her kissing me."

That obviously took Natquik aback; he stumbled off the stool as it melted into the ice, and nearly fell straight into the fire. Only a well-placed pressing block kept him out of the flames, the butt of his stick slamming into the fire bed to brace him. "Kissing? What…?" Then, slowly, a grin grew across his face. Twirling the makeshift staff in his hands, he began to chuckle.

"What's so funny?" Hikoshu asked, but at that point, Natquik was laughing hard enough that he had to take a seat across from him, the stick against his knees. Hikoshu had a sneaking suspicion that he should be embarrassed, but as always, Natquik's humor was infused more with amusement than with mockery. Which made it hard to be chagrined.

"Miyo wasn't kissing you." He wiped tears from his eyes. Then, giving Hikoshu one of his most dashing smiles, he added, "I was." He winked for good measure. Of course.

Hikoshu stared at him. "You kissed me." And after a moment: "Seriously?"

"Pretty romantic, if you ask me." Natquik leaned back on his hands, still beaming. "Locked in a passionate embrace, our two breaths mingling." He hesitated, getting his fill of Hikoshu's disgusted expression. "Well, maybe not _two_—you weren't breathing much, after all. But if those sweet lips are anything to judge by, I can probably say I now know what my cousin sees in you." He lowered his voice in feigned secrecy. "You might want to keep this from her, though. Mayami tends to get a little jealous."

Hikoshu muttered darkly, "I suppose I should've wondered why Miyo had a beard."

"Hey, I shaved today."

Time for a subject change. Especially since it'd be weeks before he heard the end of this, anyway. "What about Shaman Kinu? Isn't he still waiting?"

"Kinu will be fine. He'll figure it out." Natquik rubbed the mirth from his mouth. "And I'll explain to him what happened in the morning."

What had happened… Even Hikoshu wasn't sure what that was, but it reminded him there was one question left to ask. One that likely wouldn't come across as so coherent. "So you searched the lake pretty thoroughly, right?"

"I'd say that."

Hikoshu's heart sped up a little. "Did you see anything while you were down there?"

"Like what?"

"Like…a person." It sounded silly almost the moment he said it. Without any other explanation, it also sounded crazy, and already, Hikoshu anticipated the skepticism his question likely provoked.

As he predicted, Natquik eyed him as if to gauge his sincerity, then shrugged. "Well, given that I didn't even see _you_…no, can't say I did."

"There wasn't a…a body floating just below the ice?" Honestly, he didn't expect he had. After so many bizarre events—Natquik missing, and the lake freezing over his head, a stranger stuck under its surface and a half-hour lost of his life—he feared that no part of that afternoon had been real at all.

A quip hung on Natquik's lips; Hikoshu could see it forming. But perhaps recognizing the troubled look Hikoshu knew he wore, he changed what he was about to say. "If I had seen a person, I would have grabbed him. There was no one down there." Softly, he finished, "Not even you."

Hikoshu had long ago warmed up, but a tremble still ran through his shoulders, and for a moment, the air was filled only with the quiet snaps of the fire. There _had_ been someone down there; Hikoshu was sure of it. Perhaps an average person wouldn't have seen…

Natquik echoed his thought. "Was it the Spirit World?"

Hikoshu shook his head in uncertainty, his gaze locked morbidly on the kelp mat under him. It was hard and dry, the woven leaves crackling each time he shifted his weight. Yet somehow, it had become the most fascinating thing in the world. Particularly since it didn't involve looking at Natquik.

"Well, are you sure it was a man?"

He wasn't. "I didn't really get a good look."

Natquik sighed, uncrossing his legs. "A lot of people have died in that lake. There are a lot of legends associated with it…and a lot of spirits. So who knows?" He shrugged, the simple gesture lacking all concern. "Either it was a trip to the Spirit World, or the lake water addled your head." And with that, the problem, for Natquik at least, was over. One thing Hikoshu had always admired about Natquik was his ability to let everything go. It was his philosophy that one worried about immediate problems. But the moment they ceased to have any bearing on his life, he ceased to have any thoughts about them. Too many more important things to mull over, he'd probably say, to keep your mind so crowded.

Hikoshu tried to emulate that philosophy whenever possible, and he had to admit, Natquik had certainly rubbed off on him to an extent. But this problem wasn't leaving his thoughts so quickly. Maybe it _had_ been the lake water. Dreams and the Spirit World were often hard to differentiate, both very surreal in very similar ways. So it could've been all in his mind. Still, his instincts were telling him there was something else to it, and as often as his instincts were right…

Miyo came back then, her lithe form slipping through the door, and Hikoshu really did forget his problems. She'd dried herself off long ago, such that her robes and hair now floated around her on barely-felt air currents, as if the fabric could catch even the tiniest breezes. Her habit was predominantly orange, hanging to her feet in thick folds, and she paused to remove her sandals. Long sleeves disguised her arms, where two small blue arrows peeked out on the backs of her hands. Then, over all of it, she wore a billowing saffron shawl, loose everywhere except the front, where it was tucked into a wide and similarly yellow sash. A high orange collar hid her neck, as well as brown hair that fell nearly to her waist. It was a testament to the Air Nomad asceticism—to the general belief that appearance was merely a lie, designed to distract from the Path.

Because of that, Miyo would probably never be considered a real beauty. Hikoshu had once found her attractive—had fallen for the feather-like eyelashes, the sharp nose that looked like it'd been carved by the wind. She even had this way of quirking her eyebrows when she was torn between grinning and disgust that Hikoshu still loved years later. But he would readily admit that she wasn't beautiful the way Mayami was beautiful. Her chin was too broad, her eyes too close-set. And when she tucked her hair behind her ears, they stuck out far enough that Hikoshu couldn't resist teasing her with comparisons to lemurs. No, Miyo wasn't pretty because of her looks. She was pretty because she was Miyo. And that was good enough.

Hikoshu immediately got to his feet when she entered the hut, and even before he could say anything, she had darted across the room to throw herself into his arms. The hug was a famous Miyo-hug, painful and rib-cracking, but he returned it with equal fervor, burying his cheek into the hair above her ear. Despite the earlier swim in the lake, she still smelled like the Western Air Temple to him—sandalwood and jasmine, with a hint of the high mountain breezes. One of the things he loved most about her visits was the chance to smell the fragrances she brought with her.

They stayed in that hug for a long time, Miyo resting her head on his shoulder, her nose buried in his neck. She didn't cry, but she was visibly upset, and it made Hikoshu hold her even tighter. Finally, after a lengthy silence, she murmured, "Why is it whenever I come to visit, you're always in the middle of getting yourself killed?"

The response made him grin. "That's not true. Remember New Year?"

Dryly, she said, "Yes, that's exactly what I'm remembering." He couldn't help but laugh. And for a moment, seven years faded away. Wherever Miyo was, he'd long ago recognized, he was home. Perhaps different roads separated them, but Miyo was never far from his thoughts. Their friendship transcended anything that time or distance could put between them.

When she finally pulled back, she gave him a smile that could melt the South Pole—a smile that made him want to smile, even in his grimmest moods. And he did just that, smoothing the top of her head where several strands stuck in the air. "While I really can't complain about your timing, I've never known you to be much for surprise visits."

That smile slowly faded into a frown that formed a tiny wrinkle between her eyebrows. "Surprise visit? I sent you a message three weeks ago."

"We've been out of the village for a couple of weeks," Natquik said behind her, forgotten in the wake of their emotional reunion. He'd also stood when she entered, though he had waited for them to notice him. Blushing so faintly that Hikoshu barely caught it, Miyo turned to face him, and Natquik spread his arms in almost mock invitation. "I can't be the only one who doesn't get a hug."

"You'd enjoy it too much." Still, despite her admonishment, she stepped lightly across the kelp mat, dodged the fire pit, and pulled Natquik into a similar hug.

Similar only in a superficial sense. Like with Hikoshu, she hung her arms around his shoulders to crush him in the embrace, though with more leverage this time as they were almost the same height. Natquik's hands appeared around her waist, and he pressed his head against hers as Hikoshu had. To anyone else, it would've looked like a simple, friendly exchange, almost perfunctory in nature. But Hikoshu knew them both well enough to see how Natquik's eyes closed a little more tightly than usual, or how Miyo had swayed forward slightly to stand on her toes. Things that would mean nothing to anyone else, but said a lot to him as he waited patiently for the two to remember that they weren't supposed to be hugging this long.

When she drew back, Miyo reached up to clasp one of his beaded plaits and gave it a gentle tug. "What're these for?" His arms still around her waist, Natquik's smile turned typically sly.

"Hikoshu said you like the beaded look."

"I bet you thought I'd find that joke adorable." Despite the wry note in her voice, she continued to fiddle with the lock of hair. Immediately, Natquik broke out in a broad grin that showed off every dimple.

"I already know you find me adorable."

With a suffering sigh, she pushed against his chest and out of his arms. "It's hard to find a man adorable when he's dressed in dead animals."

"I don't have to be dressed at all, if that's what you're aiming at."

Miyo had already turned away, so Natquik missed her eye-roll. "He just won't stop." Muttering almost to herself, she approached Hikoshu once more.

Though the comment hadn't been addressed to him, Hikoshu still shrugged helplessly. "He doesn't get much of a chance to flirt around here. He's related to everyone."

"Can't imagine he wouldn't find a way around that." Raising her voice, she added, "Why have you two been gone? And what were you doing out on the lake?"

"Official Water Tribe business," Natquik said brusquely, circling around her to Hikoshu's side, where he rested an elbow on his shoulder. "No outsiders permitted." Miyo stared at him flatly, then turned to look at Hikoshu.

"There've been some strange deaths that they want us to look into," Hikoshu explained despite Natquik's exaggerated gasp of shock and offense. But what else could he do? Hikoshu could never say 'no' to that insistent look of hers. So he saw no point in trying. "Possibly spirit-related."

"And they want to use the Avatar?" She sounded less than happy, her chastising gaze now on Natquik. "And you let them?"

"Hey, I'm just a pawn in this, too." He held up his hands defensively. "Take it up with the chief if you have a problem."

"Don't take it up with the chief," Hikoshu said hurriedly, half-suspecting she would. "It's about over with, anyway. Where's your bison rider?" She seemed unhappy about his abrupt change in subject. Or perhaps with the subject he changed to.

The fact was, there were not enough bison to give every Air Nomad one. Perhaps that had been true in centuries past, but now, only a select few were granted bison as children. And Miyo wasn't one of those. As an Air Nun, she knew how to fly one, but she rarely had the chance, since bison never went anywhere without their riders.

Hence why he never expected her to have one now.

"Tehsa is Sinkai's bison." Running her fingers through her hair, Miyo pointedly stared at some spot below his chin. "Sinkai's on a four-month tour with a newly ordained Nun and said I could watch her while she was gone."

"Did she say you could take it on an excursion to the South Pole?"

The half-guilty way she refused to meet his eyes spoke volumes.

"She was going to be locked up in a stable for four months, otherwise. I thought I'd spare her the misery and pay you a long-due visit." Then her frown deepened. "Or did you not want me here?"

"Of course, we want you here," Natquik protested. "Besides, if it weren't for you today, we'd be looking for another Avatar." Hikoshu looked at him askance. Flatterer. "Though I have to wonder, you showing up after a year of complete silence…"

"Has it been a year? I've been so busy with the new novices." Her dismissive and vague attitude wasn't lost on Hikoshu, nor was it particularly convincing. Then she brightened minutely, clapping her hands together. "But I heard that you were getting married soon, and I thought maybe I should come wish you the best."

Natquik slowly grinned, still leaning his elbow—uncomfortably—on Hikoshu's shoulder. "So you realized this might be your last chance to have your way with me? I knew the temptation would be too great."

"Natquik, don't make me regret the two weeks I spent flying here."

"He's just glad to have you back," Hikoshu said, because Natquik wouldn't say it himself. "We're _both_ glad." At his words, Miyo glanced back to him. Her expression quickly morphed into a far happier one, and she airbended Natquik off of his shoulder with a casual wave. As Natquik hit the ground, she pulled Hikoshu into another, gentler hug.

"You have no idea how worried I was," she murmured below his neck. "Or how much I've missed you." And she really had no idea how much he missed her, too—though, like Natquik, he'd probably never tell her. But he held her anyway, enjoying the comfort of an old friend.

Until a cleared throat and a glare that he could practically feel burning into his neck pulled him out of the embrace. Growing anxious, he wheeled around to discover Mayami standing at the door, her arms folded under her coat-obscured breasts, the thin tattoo warping along her cheek as she regarded him coldly.

"Friend of yours, Hikoshu?"

Suddenly, for the first time that whole day, Hikoshu really didn't want to see Mayami. Taking several awkward steps from Miyo, he stumbled over his words.

"Mayami! It's not that. Miyo's just—"

"Who's Miyo?"

"She's no one. No, a really good friend. I mean, my best—"

"Hikoshu, why does she look like she wants to kill me?" That was Miyo, who stepped toward him even as he took another step away.

"Just wait while I exp—"

"Miyo's an old friend of ours from the Air Temple." Natquik had risen from the ground to save Hikoshu from his barely-intelligible stutter. Standing between Hikoshu and Miyo, he drew her closer with an arm across her shoulders. "And this—" here, he gestured to Mayami with his free hand, even as Miyo pushed his arm off of her "—is Mayami, my cousin and Hikoshu's very 'special' friend." He certainly didn't like the way Natquik lingered on the word 'special.' Miyo, ever astute, immediately caught onto his implication, and her bafflement melted into a devious smile as she glanced between the two.

"Is that so?"

That was enough. Already anticipating the kind of teasing he would face, Hikoshu crossed the hut to take Mayami's hand. "Can we go outside to talk?" Still glaring, she reluctantly assented with a stiff nod, and followed him out of the door.

It was only when they were several paces from the entrance that Mayami unleashed her anger on him. "Where have you _been_? Who is that woman?" In uncharacteristic ire, she waved at the ice hut, and Hikoshu cowered, stunned at what was possibly the first time he'd ever seen her jealous.

"Like Natquik said, she's a friend from the Air Temple. She's just visiting Natquik before he heads North."

Mayami still wasn't satisfied, her arms crossed once more under her breasts, blending into the lavender of her coat. "Then what happened to you today? Why do you look like that?"

_Look like what?_ he wanted to ask, but somehow, he feared it'd just strain her patience even more. So he automatically jumped to the likely explanation. "I fell into the lake while heading out to find Kinu."

Had it been anyone other than Hikoshu, or anyone other than Mayami, she might've fallen onto him with sweet caresses and fervent prayers of gratitude for his safety. And he might've petted her and whispered softly about how precious she was to worry about him so. But Mayami wasn't the kind to lavish a man with attention, and she certainly felt no concern over the safety of Hikoshu. And Hikoshu knew that if he ever tried to pet her, she might take off his hand.

That was what he loved about Mayami.

So unsurprisingly, she didn't uncross her arms, and she didn't look concerned. Instead, her glare simply lessened. Slightly. "Did you almost drown?"

Hikoshu gave a self-conscious shrug. "Maybe a little."

It was then that her collection of angry frowns dissolved, and a smile warped the tattooed line on her cheek. "You're hopeless. A waterbender who can't swim."

"Is that an offer for private lessons?" he said, approaching her almost cautiously. Apparently, though, her jealousy had burned out, and she folded him in the warmth of her arms, her blue eyes dancing.

"I think that could be arranged." She kissed his nose and then pulled away, leaving him in a small lurch. "But not now. You missed your swim lessons for the day, penguin." Hikoshu could see what she meant; the world was already turning a dull blue with the encroaching night. Just over the horizon, the wide half-moon towered near a distant ridge. "I suppose you're going to be busy with your old airbender friend?"

"She only visits once a year." Hikoshu turned to watch her as she sauntered past. Tall, thin, supple, with her hair pulled back in a half-bun and the rest cascading over the hood of her parka, highlighted by the moon. Simply beautiful.

She didn't even turn, her boots almost floating over the snow. "Then I'm heading home. Let me know when you want those lessons." She paused, then, casting a coy look over her shoulder. "I'm glad you're finally back, penguin."

Hikoshu stared after her with what he suspected was a stupid grin. No, it wasn't love, but it was about as close as he wanted it to be.

As Mayami left, it seemed the light went with her. In moments, his lingering happiness faded, and the worries he'd held at bay crept along the snow with the night. As Hikoshu turned to retreat back into the hut, he caught sight of the silhouetted skyline, which had settled into a dark, bruised color. He knew somewhere beyond that horizon was the lake, and whatever remained below the ice.

Clinging to his last thought of Mayami, Hikoshu ducked hastily into the warmth and safety of the hut, away from the night.

* * *

**A/N: **Thanks again to my beta, Inazuma Akai, for looking over this chapter!


	8. Ch 7: Death in the Darkness

**Chapter 7 - Death in the Darkness**

* * *

Inside the hut, Miyo and Natquik were sitting beside the fire, chatting with heads bent close. They seemed immersed in some intense topic, Miyo's expressive face twisted suspiciously as Natquik made small gestures toward the fire. Their words were hushed, as quiet as the crackling logs. Though Hikoshu couldn't have eavesdropped even if he'd wanted to; the moment he entered, Miyo snapped her head up, and gave him a knowing grin that all but declared what they had been talking about while he was gone.

Natquik, fortunately, saved him from the inevitable conversation. "Did Mayami say what she was doing here?"

Actually, she hadn't. Still, Hikoshu shrugged and took a seat beside Miyo on the kelp mat, pulling off his coat as she swept folds of orange linen under her leg. "Probably looking for me." He studiously avoided Miyo's smirking eyes. "She figures if I'm not at home, then you're holding me over for extra training."

"For all the good it does." Natquik busied himself with setting up a tripod over the fire. "I feel like I'm teaching a stone to do a cartwheel."

"I'd resent that if it weren't so painfully true." Speaking of pain, his chest still _really_ hurt. Hikoshu wondered if he should ask Natquik to look at that again, but he was already busy pulling out a pot of dried fish and some old summer tubers. And as Hikoshu had long ago learned, it was best not to distract him while he was trying to cook.

Miyo also seemed occupied by the prospective meal, her mouth set in a grimace as she hid her bare feet under her robes. "Couldn't you cook something I can eat, too? Maybe some congee?"

"No rice." Natquik deftly sliced the beets into a pan, woolen sleeves pushed up to his elbows. "Besides, if I starve you, maybe you'll stop eating crab-rabbit food."

Not likely. Miyo's expression agreed. But instead of pursuing the very old and very tired debate, she looked to Hikoshu with a spreading smile, then propped her elbows on her folded knees, her chin resting on her fists. "So…who was that?"

"Natquik's already told you." It wasn't a question; Natquik was just as susceptible to Miyo's famous searching gazes as he was. "So _what_ did he tell you?"

"Just that you'll probably leave her in a compromised situation, and his family will have to run you out of the South Pole or marry her off."

He stared at Natquik, who returned the look with as much blithe innocence as he could muster. "Seriously? You told her that? A nun?"

"Oh, come on, Hikoshu, _you_ know I'm not that naïve," she said with a snort, and Natquik obviously bit back a grin. "Are you being careful?"

"I'm not going to tell you that!"

"Why not? It's a simple question."

"Because, first off, it's you." He made sure to emphasize that last word. "And second, it's none of your business."

"Honestly, Hikoshu." Her brow darkened at his apparent lack of trust. "I tell you everything. I told you when I ki—" And suddenly Miyo paled, shooting a terrified glance at Natquik. Who just as quickly turned guarded, his knife frozen over the sizzling fish.

"When you what? What'd you tell him?"

"Nothing. Never mind." She at least had the decency to blush, busying herself with the hem of her sleeve as she tried to hide her face behind her hair. But at Natquik's persistent stare, she eventually gave an exasperated sigh. "I don't remember what I was going to say!"

She most certainly did, and all three of them knew it. Not that it mattered; whatever she'd done with Natquik years before didn't have much bearing on Hikoshu and Mayami now. And to spare the obviously tortured Miyo from her embarrassment, he decided to change the subject.

"So how are things at the Air Temple?"

But Miyo wasn't content to let the issue go, despite the discomfort it had caused her. "You know, she really is pretty. Maybe you should give some serious thought to marrying her."

Hikoshu groaned, rubbing a hand across his cheek. "I'm not marrying anyone."

"Why not? You're not getting any younger!" Then she added with an absent wave, "Take Natquik. He's soon to be happily married, himself."

"How does my marriage get dragged into everything these days?" Sullen, Natquik half-prodded, half-stabbed the fish and beets with his knife.

"Mayami and I are fine," Hikoshu said sternly, hoping that would end the conversation. "We are having fun, and it's unlikely going to be anything more."

"So you're leading the poor girl on!" Miyo stared at him in righteous indignation, and Natquik swept a palm through the air.

"See? I told you she'd agree with me."

"When were you planning to leave again?" Belatedly, he winced. As expected, Miyo looked hurt.

"You want me to leave?"

"No, I want you to drop the subject. Let's talk about something else. Like Natquik's wedding."

"Please stop talking about my wedding."

The request held a hint of desperation, but Hikoshu ignored it anyway. "Are you going to be there for it?"

Miyo seemed dubious. "I'd love to, but I don't have very fond memories of the North Pole."

"Surely you have one." Natquik's good humor was abruptly restored, and he gave her one of his typical, lascivious grins. She, in turn, was appalled, her face lighting up with another blush.

"We aren't talking about that!"

"I meant you meeting me." His voice was dry. "Not anything else that you may or may not remember. Though I don't recall you having any complaints about that, either…"

Her horror deepened along with the red hue of her cheeks. "Natquik!"

"Okay!" Hikoshu held up his hands. "We're done with this conversation. No more talking about women, weddings, or anything related to them. Natquik, your fish." The last he added wearily. As if reminded he was still actually cooking, Natquik sucked against his teeth and lifted the pan off the fire.

Now saved from her mortification, Miyo instead sunk into exasperation, her color returning to normal as her fingers unconsciously wore at the hem of her sleeve. "I can't stay too long. I'm helping Phunyam teach philosophy now, and since Chian retired her position as Elder—"

"Chian's no longer an Elder?" That surprised Hikoshu. He thought she'd die before she gave up the opportunity to terrorize young girls.

Miyo nodded, her expression strained. "Her health hasn't been good for the last three months."

"Who's Chian?" Natquik said, his words mumbled as he sucked on a burned finger. The question caused them to stare quietly, and after an uncomfortable moment, he asked, "What?"

"Well, don't worry about her dying." Hikoshu purposefully ignored his question; Natquik had likely never even met the Western Air Temple Elder who had gone out of her way to make Hikoshu feel worthless for four straight years. "I'm pretty sure the Spirit World would just as soon not have her—"

He cut off as pain shot through his head, tearing into the back of his eyes like a hot andiron. Hissing, he leaned forward as he clutched his temple, and suddenly all rational thought fled his mind.

"Hikoshu?" He became vaguely aware that Miyo was at his side, as well as Natquik, though he couldn't think past the waves of burning agony that swept through him with every breath.

"It's fine." He tried to brush them off, though he couldn't do much but cradle his head. "It's just…a headache." It was so much more than a headache.

Then he felt the cooling touch of ice water against his scalp. Without looking up, he knew that Natquik was waterbending to examine him. And the pain, which was already bad enough to cause stinging tears, doubled.

With a guttural cry, Hikoshu threw out a hand, airbending Natquik away. Somewhere to his right, he heard his friend's body hit the wall, and somewhere in front of him, he heard Miyo shouting. But the agony was bad enough now that his only thought was to escape. To tear his brain apart to find the sharp metal rod that had to be buried there. He knew he was scratching at his scalp, digging in his fingers to seize whatever was hurting him. But he didn't register even the feel of his nails, every sensation swamped by his pain.

Then, just as quickly, it was gone.

Hikoshu didn't move at first, gasping as he folded himself over his churning stomach, his head between his elbows. Any moment, he expected the pain to return, and when it didn't, he wondered if perhaps he'd died.

But it wasn't death. Hikoshu had brushed death once, and that was far worse. This pain, however, was eerily similar to something he'd felt years before. When he had come too close to spirits while still in the physical world. To him, it represented some kind of spiritual imbalance—a warping of reality that the Avatar part of him was keenly able to feel.

So what had happened here?

As his senses slowly returned, he realized that his friends weren't around him anymore. Raising his head from his elbows, Hikoshu spied them on the opposite end of the room. Miyo had dragged Natquik into her arms, where he was trying to wave off her attempts to examine him. Next to him, the wall was cracked where he'd hit it, the hides scattered on the floor, and Hikoshu could only imagine the kind of impact necessary to break ice as thick as that.

"The back of your head's bleeding," Miyo said, trying to force Natquik to look down. He kept pulling out of her grasp. "Just let me see it!"

"Hikoshu, you alright?" Finally succumbing to her forced ministrations, he looked at him from under his lowered brow, his breaths shallow. "You got a little violent there."

"Sorry," he muttered, rubbing at his own head sympathetically. "I guess I got carried away." That was an understatement. "It just hurt. A lot."

"I know what you mean." Natquik then cringed as Miyo pressed the edge of her sleeve against the cut. "I can heal that, if you let me. Besides, I think the cracked rib is probably a little more serious."

"Cracked rib?" With a soft sound of surprise, she pressed her hands to the sides of his chest. Abruptly, he gave a pained yelp.

"What are you doing?"

Miyo immediately jerked her hands back. "Checking for the broken rib!"

"I already told you I have one!"

Hikoshu's thoughts strayed from the argument, returning reluctantly to the episode. His only other memory of a pain specifically like that was in the caves of the qu-dan, a fortuneteller in the northwest Earth Kingdom. When he'd visited her, hoping to discover what dark secrets the Fire Nation was hiding, he'd felt that exact same kind of pain. Though slightly less severe.

The memories came back quickly then, as well as the confusion he'd felt. There had been something in his head at the time, observing his thoughts. At first, he'd thought it was the Avatar State, but the presence was too foreign. Too unnatural.

This wasn't the same, though. There hadn't been a presence, or anything in his thoughts. There had simply been pain, as if something was horribly amiss. But if that were the case, then why did it end? If there were some sort of spiritual imbalance, then how was it set right?

"Careful, careful…"

Hikoshu looked up to discover that Natquik was naked above the waist, Miyo gently helping him remove his robes. He still sat with his back to her, and he moved with meticulous caution.

"Rib fracture is here." Natquik took hold of her left hand and stuck it gingerly against his rib cage, at some meridian point that Hikoshu was probably supposed to recall but was never very good at memorizing. "Can you feel it shift when I breathe?"

Hikoshu had been forgotten. Though, he thought afterward, that possibly wasn't a bad thing. The longer Miyo kept her attention on Natquik, her eyes trained in fascination on his hand, the longer Hikoshu had to come up with an explanation for why he had apparently gone crazy.

Miyo, lost in concentration, shook her head. "I can't feel anything."

"That's good. Means it probably didn't puncture my lung." Natquik then bended a palmful of water from the floor, the ice condensing around his fingers, and placed his hand on top of hers. A moment later, the two hands glowed blue.

"You're trying to teach her how to heal?" Hikoshu didn't mean to sound incredulous, but watching him walk through waterbending steps with an airbender didn't make much sense, either. Immediately, though, he chastised himself. He didn't have any right to criticize Natquik's actions when his own actions had just resulted in throwing Natquik into a wall.

"Well, to be honest, I'm glad at least someone wants to learn." Natquik winced, then let go of her hand, the water running away. "All the kids want to know is how to fight. No one appreciates the healing arts anymore."

Miyo barely seemed to register their conversation, her eyes traveling with interest from his chest to her hand. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Hikoshu had a memory of her desire to be a waterbender in another life. Just so she could know what it was like to heal.

Natquik was moving more quickly now that his rib was healed, and he turned to face her as he seized her hand once more. "Now feel again, same place, when I breathe."

They settled into their natural pattern of not-so-unintentional flirting, and Hikoshu was about to suggest he give them some privacy. But a sound interrupted his thoughts, and he turned curiously toward the crack in the wall.

The crack wasn't massive, or at least not large enough that he could see through it. But it did form a dark, thick line, a portion of the wall obviously pushed out toward the exterior. And, despite the fact that there were two separate locations that should have channeled that odd sound—both a smoke hole and an entrance—the noise he heard didn't come from either of them. It was coming from the wall.

Too absorbed in their healing lesson, neither of his friends noticed as he approached the fissure. Nor did he think they noticed when he stuck his ear against the ice. He didn't really imagine it would do much good, anyway. It was very unlikely the noise actually came through a wall this thick.

But there it was. Distinctive. Strangely loud when such a noise should have been faint.

The crunching of shoes in hard snow.

Abruptly, it was drowned out by another set of footsteps. However, these came from the entrance, and where the former was slow, calm, the new set was frantic, as if someone were running.

Natquik and Miyo, who hadn't seemed to hear the first noise, definitely heard this one, and when it came to a stop in front of the entrance, they threw themselves into a flurry of activity, trying to pull Natquik's clothes back on.

"Avatar, are you in here?" A woman's voice came from outside the door, partially blocked by the heavy animal skins that held in the heat. Hikoshu looked to Miyo uncertainly, but she was busy trying to find Natquik's sash. As if they'd both been caught doing something indecent.

Rolling his eyes, he grabbed his coat. If someone was looking for him at Natquik's home, it meant they must really need him. It would be insane to keep important news waiting.

A moment later, Hikoshu was out in the cold, yanking his coat over his head. The woman who had come looking for him took several steps back to let him by, and he squinted at her as his eyes acclimated to the moonlight.

It was Pama, a waterbender of some forty years who was also married to Shaman Tati. She panted, her sunken eyes wide, her hair loose from its usual braid as she held her arms tightly over her breasts. Two dark blue lines were tattooed from the outer corner of her eyes to the corner of her lips, which hung open to reveal two missing teeth. She was in her coat and heavy boots, but overall, she just seemed disheveled. Almost as if she were falling apart.

"Avatar Hikoshu, we need your help." She sounded breathless, too, reinforcing the idea that she'd been running. "You have to come quick."

"What's wrong? Did something happen to Tati?"

She shook her head, but her expression held a hint of an even deeper fear. "It's Shaman Utt. Please, we have to hurry. We need Shaman Natquik." As if bidden, Natquik stuck his head out of the flap, peering at them blindly in the dark.

"Pama, what's going on?"

She didn't explain, barely sparing him and the skies a relieved look before she turned to disappear back into the snowy evening. Hikoshu waited for Natquik before he followed, but already, his nerves were on edge.

The night had swallowed Pama, though Hikoshu could easily follow her tracks in the snow. Behind Natquik's home, the rest of the village was deathly quiet, everyone retired for the evening. The huts stood like round hills of ice in the moonlight, only the occasional glint of firelight slipping through the edges of skin-covered doorways. But they weren't headed for the village proper. Pama's tracks continued along the edge of the town, where the Shaman huts stood.

These weren't nearly as tightly packed as those in the village, as they were given a wide berth for the mystical powers that surely surrounded them. Because of that, they were also much larger, standing twice as tall as Hikoshu and with the occasional small, round storage room attached. Pama eventually reappeared between the huts, her figure dark against the snow. In her wake, two of the nine Shamans of the village had come out of their homes, bone items that Hikoshu could only guess were talismans swinging from their hands. They threw curious, yet concerned glances between their hurrying figures, and Hikoshu forced himself to avoid their eyes. No sense in worsening their fears with his own doubts.

Pama stopped by the entrance of her house and waited patiently for them to catch up, though she hardly looked patient. Rather, she wore a look of distress as she held the animal skin open for Hikoshu, and he hesitated before he ducked through the tunneled entrance.

There was something unsettling, he realized, about walking into such a tunnel when one had no idea what lay on the other side.

But the room he entered was perfectly normal, shaped much like Natquik's, only larger, with a raised platform that spanned the farthest third of the room. Several fireskins hung from the ceiling at intervals, illuminating rounded walls that were draped in hides, sacred art, and various wooden frameworks from which tools and musical instruments dangled. In fact, the only unusual feature was the frantic waterbender who knelt on the platform, hovering over a prostrate body.

Tati moved back as Hikoshu joined him, his dark hair a mess of knots and bone fragments. He was still young, if older than Hikoshu, but at that moment he looked ancient. His face, which had always reminded Hikoshu of a toucan-frog with his wide mouth and sharp nose, wore a grimace that exaggerated the features. Brushing his hair out of weary blue eyes, he settled next to the person's feet, and Hikoshu assumed a place near his head.

Utt lay on a few thin layers of fur, looking just as Hikoshu remembered him from weeks ago, when he'd first brought news of Kiruk's murder. But his face no longer bore that haughty smirk of pride, and his jowls sagged heavily around his neck. The skin, usually as dark as any other tribesman's, was waxy and ashen, his lips thin. He appeared to be dead.

Tati confirmed that a moment later. "He was like this when my wife found him. I was with him and Shaman Yushu this evening. Utt retired early, and Pama accompanied him back to our hut. But she stopped to talk to another woman, and when she entered…"

"How long was he by himself?" Hikoshu felt for his pulse anyway, as there wasn't much else he could do. This wasn't really an Avatar matter.

"Minutes, perhaps. Not long."

"His heart probably gave out." A quick scan of the Shaman's clothed body showed no signs of injury, the hut no signs of an attack. And Utt was fairly old and a little on the heavy side, and such things happened frequently in the Fire Nation to men like that…

"Shamans' hearts do not just give out," Tati said darkly. Hikoshu glanced up at him. His mouth was twisted into a stern frown, though his gaze was directed at Utt. "That isn't how he died."

"I'm sorry?" He didn't have a chance to hear Tati's explanation, as suddenly Natquik burst into the room with a cold breeze, his face reddened, his hood over his head.

"Was talking to Shaman Yushu." He signaled Hikoshu out of the way and knelt by Utt's shoulders. Now it was getting a little crowded with three of them around the body, so Hikoshu moved further down to stand behind Tati.

This allowed him to see what Natquik was doing, who spoke as he worked. "Yushu said he wasn't alone for very long." Natquik again felt for a pulse, then reached under his own coat to pull his knife free from its sheath.

"He entered the hut and my wife stopped in front of the entrance to speak to Wikkena."

"Could there have been anyone else in here before he entered?" He'd sliced open Utt's coat as well as his robes, then pulled the fabric back to reveal a large, unusually flabby body, covered in scars and just as waxy as his face.

"If there was, they didn't fight. And the person would have had to escape through the smoke hole." Possible, though the smoke hole loomed high in the ceiling, well beyond Hikoshu's reach. It was large enough to fit a man, stars glinting hazily through it. Perhaps someone could have bended himself out.

"Besides," Tati continued, his voice turning ominous, "that isn't how he died."

Natquik threw him a curious look, but he was already bending water around his hands. They assumed their usual, faint glow of light blue, and he pressed them to the Utt's chest.

Hikoshu had never seen his friend's eyes grow so round. Startled, Natquik removed his hands with a baffled frown, then bended again, the water rippling where it touched skin. Again, he pulled back just as suddenly.

"This doesn't make sense."

"What? What happened?" Hikoshu nearly bumped into Tati as he leaned low to see better. "Is he alive?"

Having recovered from his initial shock, Natquik now drew water along the strangely loose skin of Utt's abdomen. "No, he's definitely dead. He just…he doesn't have any organs."

"What?" He was sure he'd misunderstood.

"He has no organs. I mean, there's a heart, lungs, but everything below his ribs is _missing_." Using the topmost layer of furs, Natquik strategically shifted the overweight Utt onto his stomach, such that the back now faced him. He then disrobed the corpse further and explored the ashy skin once more. "But there aren't any cuts. No incisions."

"I don't think there was anyone in this hut when he entered," Tati said with that same ominous tone, having not moved except to help Natquik turn Utt. "What I want you to tell me is how this could have happened."

"This _can't_ happen." Natquik sat back on his feet, his expression dazed as he scanned Utt's naked torso. "This is physically impossible."

"How about spiritually?"

So that was why Tati had wanted Hikoshu there. He'd already suspected that something not-human was involved.

"I'm a healer, not a spirit-medium," Natquik said with a shake of his head. "You're going to need Kinu for that."

"Kinu's already been here. He's waking up the chief right now. Are they back yet, Pama?"

Hikoshu realized Pama had entered while they talked and now stood just before the platform, wringing her hands nervously as she watched Natquik work. Her hair was even messier than it had been earlier, and she looked nearly sick to her stomach. But when Tati spoke to her, she regarded him with a steady gaze.

"Not yet. Tati, we need Utt out of our house. He can't stay here like this."

"We're not throwing him out."

"Tati!"

"Pama!"

They were waging a war of ethics and superstition, and Hikoshu couldn't guess which one would be the victor. It was a contest of wills, the duties of a host versus the taboos of an unnatural death in an unknown home, and at stake was the very safety of the household.

"We can bend a separate shelter after the chief arrives." Natquik interceded before the argument escalated. "He can't go outside." Reminding Hikoshu of a third taboo: the removal of a corpse from a hut before the requisite three days of mourning. There were so many rules regarding death that it was no wonder they were afraid that spirits were somehow involved. They had to be breaking at least one.

"Can you tell us anything about how it happened?" Pama darted terrified blue eyes to Natquik, who threw an incredulous glance over his shoulder.

"Like I said, I'm just a healer. I can only tell what physically happened to him."

"But what about the—?" She cut off abruptly with a hooded look at Hikoshu and changed what she was about to say. "Are you sure you have no idea?"

"No. I don't," Natquik snapped, not even turning around. It was something Hikoshu would have to ask about later, though he doubted he would get a straight answer. "You need to ask Kinu."

Then, so faintly that he almost didn't notice, Hikoshu heard it again. Under all of their talking, he heard the sound of footsteps in snow. And just like before, it didn't come through the entrance or the smoke hole, as he would have expected. It came directly through the wall behind him. Except that this time, there was no crack in it.

"Everyone, hush!" Somehow, they actually listened to him, all three going quiet as they turned to watch him. It wasn't louder, but it was certainly clearer. Heavy, steady steps breaking through the crust of an early morning freeze, though the snow hadn't yet crusted over.

"Do you hear that?" he whispered, the hairs on his neck rising. They stared at him with a mixture of dread and doubt. "The footsteps." Obligingly, the three people remained silent as they listened. But no one was obviously hearing it.

Suddenly, Hikoshu knew he needed to be outside. Staggering to a stand, he pushed past Pama then dashed out of the door, the skins snapping behind him. His feet almost slid out from under him as he skidded around the ice hut, and came to a stop just on the edge of the ice fields behind it.

Everything was dark, the moonlight catching no figures in the snow or any footprints. The tundra was a flat ice sheet, as blank as new parchment, and silence stretched across the waste. Breathing heavily, Hikoshu tried to calm his thudding heart and strained to catch just a trace of those footsteps. Yet with each passing beat, he realized more clearly that nothing was out there.

One thing was certain: he needed to see. Hikoshu jerked his right arm up, the left arm bent, and spun his body in a tight circle. His feet came off the ground with the motion, one leg held in the air, and as he landed, he stomped his heel into the snow and snapped his palms forward.

A fountain of flame burst from the center of his hands, shooting so high that it set the sky on fire. Abruptly, night became day, and the tundra was bathed in searing heat as shadows wavered against the uneven snow. The rush of flames was loud enough to drown out any other sound, and Hikoshu for a moment was only able to rely on his vision. Which was, in turn, swamped with blinding light.

Not that it mattered, he concluded. The flickering silhouettes held no signs of life, the tundra empty as it danced under the glare of his fire. After several long, dismaying moments, he let his hands drop and the fire extinguish. He had to expect it, really. The likelihood that he would have caught sight of a spirit that didn't want to be seen was small. But he'd heard it when he didn't imagine it wanted to be heard, and he couldn't stop it by sound alone. He had to see it to attack it.

Almost the entire village was there to greet him when he returned to the huts. Natquik, Tati, and Pama, of course. Chief Atua had arrived along with Kinu, and Miyo with her staff, making her way to Natquik's side. Behind them, more arriving by the moment, were the other villagers. They stood as a group at the edge of the last hut, as if too scared to follow him into the wilds. Most of them, probably woken by the fire, had expressions of confusion. Nearly all of them looked terrified.

Hikoshu realized he was going to have to make a speech. He was horrible at speeches.

"It's fine, everyone!" he shouted, using a little airbending trick Miyo had once taught him to project his voice. "I…just…thought I saw a wolf pack and was trying to scare it away." He was such a terrible liar. "But it was nothing! Sorry, all. Go back to bed." There was little chance they'd be willing to do that. Given an unforgotten history in which the Southern Tribe was attacked by firebenders nearly fifty years before, no one was going to sleep easy with the image of that fire still in their heads.

It was one of the many reasons Hikoshu had tried to avoid firebending for the last four years. To gain their trust, he'd had to reinvent himself as the Avatar, no longer identifying himself as a man of the Fire Nation. The only things about his former life he'd managed to cling to were his long-cherished topknot, which he still wore on occasion; his eyes, which he couldn't really hide; and a half-torn, well-faded note—the last message ever given to him by his firebending master. Somehow, though, his attempts at anonymity had succeeded, at the expense of his remaining connections to his homeland.

The people not aware of Utt's murder began to clear out, assured by the chief and Shamans that everything was fine. Tomorrow, they would find out about Utt, but until Atua had more answers, he would not worry the tribe members. So while he did not lie about the evening, he did remain vague on specific events. And mollified, villagers slowly fell back to their homes.

Atua was the first one to confront Hikoshu, his hands folding into fur sleeves. His coat was elaborate compared to most of the other men's; tiny copper discs were weaved into shaggy fur, and the long claws of some beast created a sharp, almost threatening belt across his waist. Though he'd obviously been in a hurry to get out to the edge of the village, Atua showed no rush in his dress. He still wore one of his thick bone necklaces, and teeth-earrings hung to his jaw.

"Did you find anything?" he said gruffly, keeping his voice low so that the few stragglers that hadn't left yet wouldn't hear them.

"The spirit's still around here, but I don't know where." Hikoshu tried to listen for those footsteps, but any transient sounds were lost under the shuffling of living people. "I couldn't see it."

"That room had every talisman that I know of," Kinu said as he approached, his gray hair pulled back in a loose caribou-elk tail. It hung low near the base of his neck and resembled a halo of light as it caught the moon. His face, sunk in shadows, formed a stark contrast against it. "Including the ones I brought back from the stone-frog clan. Tati said he used all of the protections after we warned him of this possibility."

Hikoshu was floored. "Wait, you thought this was going to happen?" Their expressions were blank, but that spoke volumes. "You _knew_ it was going to happen. But how?"

"We don't know anything, Master Avatar. We have suspicions." Atua's manner never changed, but his voice was dangerous. A warning not to challenge his integrity.

At this point, though, Hikoshu was tired. And even more tired of the inherent Water Tribe secrecy. "When were you planning to share those suspicions with me?"

"Please keep your voice down, Hikoshu," Kinu said lowly, his long eyebrows shaking as he nodded his head toward the handful of individuals who hadn't left, not yet reassured enough to go home. "We noticed a pattern, but we had no way to confirm it. So we told Tati to take some precautions, just on the off-chance we were right."

"You were wrong, though. Tati wasn't attacked."

"No," Tati said as he walked toward them, his froggish eyes heavy with exhaustion, "they were actually right." Natquik was behind his shoulder, and his somber mood indicated that he'd already been told. "They weren't trying to protect me. They wanted to guard _ningauq. _My brother-by-marriage, Utt."

"And all the protections failed," Kinu said with a frown as he quickly scanned the area. They _were_ being watched. Three Shamans, the Chief, and the Avatar engrossed in open conversation attracted a lot of attention. "Nothing we guarded against worked."

"So this is a spirit we've never encountered before," Natquik said, still at Tati's shoulder, his breaths creating visible mist.

Kinu shrugged. "Or it's a spirit we haven't encountered in a very long time."

"But _who_ is it attacking? You obviously have some idea." Hikoshu refused to drop the subject. If he was going to put himself in danger, he was going to have all available knowledge about this thing.

A long, hesitant pause, and Atua finally took the initiative to tell him. "It's only attacked former members of the Northern Water Tribe. We think that might be a determinant in who the spirit targets."

"Northern Water Tribe? You mean like—"

_Mayami_.

He then realized that was probably what Mayami had come to talk to him about. But she must've decided not to at the last moment, just as the men who stared at him so grimly had decided to protect them both. No matter how much he and Mayami kept their relationship clandestine, everyone knew how close he was to her. So they had made a collective choice not to tell him. "But she was only born there. She's not actually from the Northern Water Tribe."

"We've taken all the precautions with her, Hikoshu," Tati began, lifting a hand as if to comfort him. Hikoshu quickly stepped back to avoid it. Why did he need to be comforted, after all? Unless they feared her death was inevitable.

"Right now, only old men like me have been attacked." Kinu also held up a hand, though it seemed more to halt a predicted argument. "We have no reason to believe she'll be next."

"Other than the fact she's from the Northern Water Tribe. Who else is at risk here?"

"No one else in the village," Atua said quickly. "Only Utt and Mayami come from Northern clans. And now that we have an idea of what doesn't work, we'll focus on doing things different with her."

"You already said you've tried everything. What can you possibly do?"

"Well, we were hoping you could help us with that."

Abruptly, Hikoshu felt the weight of all of their eyes on him. These wise, old men, who should know all the answers, now stared at him as if he were the only solution they had. It was the same searching look that had plagued him years before, when the Air Nomads had turned to him to solve their problems. And then the Northern Water Tribe when they asked him to fix theirs. He was haunted by that expectant look. More than anything, he hated the feeling that lives depended on him. Especially Mayami's.

"I'll do what I can," he muttered, and left the conversation.

As soon as he was away from them, Miyo was at his side. "Are you alright?" She was concerned, peering into his face as if to read what was troubling him. But he knew he couldn't lie to her, and he knew the truth wouldn't make her feel better. So he just sighed and clasped her shoulder.

"You said you're going to be teaching philosophy?"

"Hikoshu."

"Don't worry about it, it's just Avatar stuff." Telling her not to worry didn't actually work, and she shifted her staff into her other hand so she could wrap an arm around his waist. It didn't look proper for her to be holding him, but he didn't care. It was nice to have the comfort. "Maybe we should go fix Natquik's wall—"

The pain came back. So quickly that it was like a blow to the stomach, taking his breath away and doubling him over at the same time. Searing, stabbing, blinding him, as his fingers tore at his scalp and a half-registered whine escaped through his teeth.

Miyo was shouting again, though Hikoshu knew he hadn't hurt anyone this time. He wanted to. He wanted to rip his head apart, or bury it in the snow. To destroy whatever was causing this. And then he knew exactly what that was.

Miyo clutched his shoulders as he tried to straighten, his vision swimming with the agony. Natquik and the Shamans had come running up, but it was too hard to focus on their faces. So Hikoshu just spoke to whoever, and quickly.

"The spirit's attacking someone. Someone here." They all knew who he meant. Wordlessly, the Shamans shot off, almost like they disappeared from view. They were skating along the snow as fast as possible, trying to get to the other side of the village where Mayami's hut was.

They wouldn't make it in time.

"Miyo, you have to go." Something slammed into the back of his skull, and for a moment, Hikoshu thought he'd been clubbed. But it was only a sensation, and he gasped raggedly through it, bracing his hands on his thighs. "Find Mayami's hut."

"Where?" She didn't even ask what was happening.

"Opposite side of the village, due north. There's a tiger-seal skin on the roof and a cistern by the door. Go fast!"

He didn't need to say anything else. One moment, she was standing next to him and the next moment, she was gone, taking to the air on her glider. Now alone, Hikoshu allowed himself to collapse to his knees, and squeezed his head between his arms. But he prayed for the pain to continue, his heart freezing each time it started to abate.

As long as it still hurt, there was still time for them to save Mayami.

* * *

**A/N: **Thanks as always to the hard work of my diligent beta, Inazuma Akai!


	9. Ch 8: Lost in the Flames

**Chapter 8 - Lost in the Flames**

* * *

The pain searing through Hikoshu's head did eventually subside, and it felt both like ages and like moments had passed before it ended. Despite the fear that washed over him, relief was nearly as strong, and he fell into the snow with a shuddering gasp. People had surrounded him in the meantime, their dark faces staring down at him in concern and terror. They were worried about him, but they weren't going to touch him. Not when he might be ensnared in some spiritual battle.

There wasn't time to recover. Pushing himself up, making the thin crowd scatter in the process, Hikoshu bended powdery flakes from his coat and then took off back into the village. He could skate along the snow as well as any of the Shamans, but he also had airbending, and he used both to speed so quickly between the huts that he was almost certain he was going to run into something in the night.

He just didn't have time to worry about that.

The huts passed by him in a blur, and the icy wind tore at his face so harshly that he thought it might have scoured away the top layer of skin. His head still throbbed, but more like a normal headache, and in comparison to the pain before, it was almost pleasant. So he ignored it as he slid around buildings, airbending off of the huts he came too close to hitting.

Then he saw them. He didn't need to see the water cistern or the tiger-seal skin; two of the people were huddled near the glowing door of Mayami's hut, deep in conversation. Hikoshu skidded to a halt several feet before them, throwing up snow as he stopped. Jumping into a run, he covered the final distance just as they turned toward him.

One of them was Mayami.

Short of breath, he grabbed her into his arms and crushed against his chest, holding so tight that he thought he might suffocate her. She also hugged him, though with less strength than he'd expected. Finally pulling back, Hikoshu gazed at her worriedly and saw that her cheeks shone with cold tears, her dim eyes brimming with more.

"What happened?" The question he whispered to her, but Hikoshu looked to the other person for an answer. Tati stood next to them, his somber face shrouded by a black heap of wind-tossed hair. "Where is everyone?"

"My grandfather," Mayami said thickly, her gloved hands reaching up to clutch his coat. "My grandfather's dead."

She still had both of her grandfathers, but likely she meant her mother's father, Minoq. He had lived with Mayami ever since her sister had moved away and was the closest person to her since the death of her parents two years before. But he was Southern Water Tribe, and Hikoshu glanced in confusion from her to Tati. His shoulders stooped, hands in his pockets, the Shaman stared at Mayami with a simple and grave sadness. Apparently they had been terribly mistaken.

Hikoshu pulled her against his chest once more and brushed his hand along her loose-bound hair. But she had ceased crying, sniffling into the fur as her back heaved with swallowed sobs. Mayami was strong; she wouldn't want to show her tears. And she probably wouldn't want to be comforted, but he had to help her in some way.

"You should go in there," Tati finally said, his voice filled with the same weight as earlier. "I'll stay with Mayami."

Surrendering her reluctantly, Hikoshu checked her face one last time; she obstinately turned it away and moved instead toward Tati. It was a silent signal that she didn't need him now. She'd be fine on her own. Hikoshu wasn't so sure of that, but he obediently let her go and stepped into the large shelter he'd only visited a few times before.

The hut used to house Mayami's extensive family, but since the death of her parents and the marriage of her sister, the family had slowly been reduced to two: she and her grandfather. Natquik's family, who were her father's original clan, had offered to take them both in but they refused. Mayami hadn't wanted to force her grandfather to rely on another clan for survival. And despite some difficulties stemming from his age and her youth, they still managed on their own. A small but happy home.

Two occupants had meant the hut was pretty sparsely furnished, given its size. When Hikoshu had been there before, there were only a few animal rugs and two elaborate mats of woven antlers hung on the walls. A privacy curtain made of tough hide and sewn with mollusk shells had separated part of the spacious interior for Mayami's use, where most of her belongings were hidden, and Minoq's cot was set near the central fire pit. Four firebags were needed to light the inside, but they only used two, which often left a portion of the room in shadow.

With that memory still in mind, Hikoshu was surprised by the changes that had been made. The walls were now cluttered with leather hangings, many having the same geometric designs as he'd seen in Tati's hut. Mayami's partition still stood, but delicate, silk-like nets clung to the shells. Wary of the rituals, Hikoshu also noticed the shallow line drawn in the ice all around the inside the room, creating a narrow trench which he had to step over. The firebags, all four now lit, put off an unusually thick smoke which held a pungent smell that he had simply dismissed as left-over supper in Tati's hut.

But more than anything, his gaze was drawn to the row of blue coats blocking his view of Minoq's cot, as four Shamans hovered over something unseen. Natquik was the first to look up at his entrance, his appearance haggard. Loose from its band, his hair fell into his face and obscured his eyes, which Hikoshu thought were red. Escaping from the gathered men, he clasped Hikoshu's shoulder.

"Are you alright?" he asked for the second time that night, and Hikoshu nodded. "Go join the Shamans. I'm going to check on Mayami." Then he was gone, slipping outside.

Hikoshu timidly approached that cot, dread following him as he prepared himself for what he was about to see. The Shamans—Kinu, Yoshu, and Pikata—were bunched so closely together that he had to walk halfway into the room before he could make out the contents of the bed.

The sight made him gag.

He had mistaken the odor for something they'd put in the oil lamps. In reality, it was Mayami's grandfather who was putting off that smell, his skin charred black enough that he was virtually unrecognizable. He might've still had a face, but his hair was all gone, and his fingers and feet were mere bones where the flesh had peeled away. In the firelight, he glistened with a greasy film, his hands resting in the deep pit below his rib cage.

Horrible. Burning to death was always horrible, and he didn't think he needed to see any more.

Slowly, Hikoshu became aware of a choking sound under the gentle murmurs of talking Shamans, and he turned toward the hide curtain. Swaying with an unfelt breeze, the shells glittered behind the fine mesh of nets, forming an eerie background to the scene. In growing suspicion, Hikoshu approached the hide and pushed it back with his wrist to peer behind it.

Miyo was still in the room, as he feared she might be. She had hidden as far away as she could inside the small space, wedged behind Mayami's fur-lined cot. Her arms were wrapped so tightly around her legs that her fingers were white where she clutched her elbows, and her face was equally pale. Clenching her jaw, she stared, unblinking, at the silhouettes of Shamans dancing along the curtain, their movements warped by the firelight. Again, she made a low choking noise in her throat and gradually turned her eyes to him.

"Let's get you out of here." He grabbed her staff from the floor, then pushed the cot away to gather her into his arms. She immediately hid her face in his neck, and working past his awkward hold, Hikoshu melted a hole in the wall.

Outside, a cold wind immediately blew over them, hissing between the neighboring huts. As flakes dampened his face, Hikoshu placed Miyo, motionless, in the snow with her staff. Now that he'd had a chance to calm his pounding heart, and with the energy that had powered his dash through town gone, the night had suddenly become frigid. His sweat, sticky against his skin, made his coat uncomfortable and froze on his neck. Cold enough that he could barely rebuild the wall he'd just torn down, his fingers quickly growing too numb to bend.

Then he returned to kneel in front of Miyo. Her eyes were concentrated on her knees now, where her palms nervously smoothed out the wrinkles in her robes. Occasionally she'd shudder, but otherwise, she didn't react.

"You must be freezing." It was a statement more than a question, but he would've been happy if she'd nodded in agreement. Sitting back, Hikoshu pulled his coat over his head. Yet even before he'd completely removed it, she gasped sharply.

"Don't put that on me, Hikoshu!" Now she looked at him, drawing away as if he was going to burn her.

"I'm not going to," he said quickly, setting the coat down. It really was freezing now, and he bended the sweat out of his robes. Then, removing the woolen outer layer, he wrapped that around her shoulders instead. Fortunately, she didn't seem bothered by the wool, and slowly—very slowly—she relaxed under it as he pulled his parka back on. Hikoshu bended walls of ice around them to keep out the wind, then produced a flame in his hand. It was rough, but all of a sudden, they had a tolerable shelter that would at least keep them warm while they talked.

"Why did you stay in there?" he said, crossing his legs underneath him. Miyo had focused her eyes on him, and the color had returned partly to her cheeks. Still, she looked very disturbed, her face drawn.

"I couldn't leave until someone showed up," she finally answered, right before he gave up hope that she'd even speak. "He was already dead by the time I got—" Again, she made that choking noise, and her neck stretched as if fighting back to urge to vomit. "—I got there."

"Take deep breaths." Hikoshu leaned forward to seize one of her hands, giving her fingers a tight squeeze. "Just breathe. Don't think about it."

Miyo obviously wasn't going to be able to take his advice. "He was smoldering when I got there. His skin was still bubb—" Sticking the back of her free wrist against her mouth, she retched loudly. Hikoshu just held tighter.

Eventually, she regained control of the reflex, and gasping, she looked up at him with teary red eyes. "Oh, spirits, he smelled so awful." Hikoshu nodded somberly.

"I know."

Miyo was fazed by very little, and she'd been his source of strength for so long that he'd forgotten that she _could _be fazed. As a strict adherer to the path of non-violence, she couldn't stand to inflict pain—couldn't stand to see pain in others. And given the horrific nature of this death, Hikoshu could only imagine how deeply it had shaken her.

But he was also forgetting that Miyo had smelled burning flesh before. Flesh which had been her own.

At that memory, Hikoshu crawled to her side and wrapped an arm around her, forcing her to rest her head on his shoulder. After some prompting, she finally did, and he could feel the subtle tremors that occasionally wracked her body.

"How long does it take you to die like that?" she whispered after a long pause, the question accompanied by another small shudder.

"I don't know." He really didn't. He wanted to say, and certainly hoped, that a person died within moments from the shock. Though he imagined it was a little bit longer than that.

"Is Mayami going to be okay? She wasn't inside when…" Miyo trailed off, changing what she was about to say. "She was outside, watching your fire. She came inside with me."

"Mayami will be fine." Hikoshu didn't know that, either. Sadly, he pressed his cheek against her head. "I'm sorry, Miyo. I shouldn't have made you go."

"Stop it." Her voice was surprisingly dry. "I'm not in the mood to soothe your guilty conscience." It made him smile, even though he didn't really want to, and he let the fire go as he drew his other arm around her to cradle her against him.

They were sitting like that in the dark when one of the walls suddenly dropped into the snow, and Natquik stuck his head in.

"Hikoshu, what—?" He cut off, startled, as he spied Miyo in the moonlight that seeped beyond the edges. "What's going on? I've been looking for you two."

"We're just taking a break." Hikoshu bended a flame back into his palm, throwing them all into warm relief. "We'll be out in a bit."

"Miyo, are you alright?" His hair tied back once more, Natquik really did seem concerned. And contrite.

"I'm fine." She didn't lift her head from Hikoshu's shoulder. Stooping, Natquik crawled into the little structure that wasn't meant to hold more than two. It took him a moment to move Miyo's staff so it wasn't stabbing him in the thigh, but once settled, he bended the wall back into place.

"Listen, we've got problems."

"Really?" Hikoshu couldn't help the sarcasm, though he did note how bitter it sounded.

"I'm serious." That was an odd reversal—usually Natquik was the only one who _wasn't _serious. "Most of the village doesn't know about these unexplained deaths. There have been rumors, but no one outside of us has pieced together yet that the deaths are related."

"They're going to figure it out pretty quickly, now that the village has two." He stroked Miyo's shoulder idly, which he didn't even notice until he saw that Natquik was watching his hand with a thoughtful frown. "Atua's going to have to tell them."

"And he will, but that's not the problem. Or it is. Sort of. We've got two unexplained deaths, right? Both occurring nearly at the same time. Everyone in the village will know that you have something to do with it. They saw you bend a wall of flames just beyond Tati's house, and I think everyone knows that it had nothing to do with some 'wolf pack.'"

"That really was a terrible lie," Miyo murmured at his shoulder, resting a hand against his chest. Hikoshu managed a grin from the top of her head.

"Wolf packs are very dangerous things."

"Both of you, focus," Natquik said impatiently, waving to get their attention. "Remember, we're still serious here. Now, Hikoshu, everyone—_everyone—_saw you bending a massive bout of flame outside of Tati's hut. And tomorrow, they're going to quickly discover Minoq was burned alive. The grandfather of a woman that you are 'having a fun time' with, who was also engaged to someone else _by_ her grandfather."

Hikoshu didn't like the direction Natquik's thoughts were heading. "They're going to think I had something to do with this?"

"They're going to think you actually did it."

"But he was on the other side of the village when that man died!" Miyo protested, as if she had to defend him against Natquik. "There are witnesses."

"They're scared of his Avatar powers, Miyo. They have no idea what he can or can't do. For all they know, he can roast someone from half a mile away."

"Please don't say that." Her voice turned thick, and Natquik turned guilty again, ducking his head.

"Sorry. But what I mean is that Hikoshu was obviously acting very funny tonight, and two people died. We can explain it all we want, but they're going to suspect him. It's just the nature of being…"

Natquik didn't finish the sentence, but he didn't need to. _The nature of being a firebender_ _among waterbenders_. Even though Hikoshu had lived with these people for four years, they were still distrustful of him. All because of some old bias they held against his entire nation.

"Well, then, what do we do?" Hikoshu was tired of problems. There were a lot of problems and not enough solutions. So that was what he wanted right now.

"I don't know." That wasn't the answer he was looking for. "Chief Atua wants to watch and see how the situation plays out." Nor that.

"They can't do anything to Hikoshu," Miyo pleaded, and her fingers tensed in the fur of his coat. "He's the Avatar."

"No, no one's going to hurt Hikoshu." At least Natquik seemed certain about that. "We'll make sure of it. But it is something that he'll have to deal with, and I wanted to make you aware of it before the morning."

"Thanks, Natquik."

"Don't mention it." Then, grunting as he scooted to his feet, he bended the wall open again. "The Shamans are having a meeting here shortly at the kashiq. You might want to come whenever you're done here." Hikoshu was about to stop him—to ask him how Mayami was—but he wasn't sure if he wanted to approach the topic again with Miyo there. So he let Natquik go, as the waterbender stepped outside and bended the wall back into place.

"I detected a little jealousy," Hikoshu mumbled against her head, and she _hmph_ed.

"So what's happening here, Hikoshu? You obviously have some idea."

"I can fill you in on the way to this meeting."

"That I'm not invited to?" She raised her head from his shoulder, pinning him from below her arrow with a curt frown. "The Water Tribe doesn't like outsiders in their affairs."

"I think at this point, you've earned it."

"Actually, I'm just tired. I think I'll go to my hut."

"Want me to walk you there?"

Miyo was already pushing off of him, reaching for her staff. "I'd prefer you carry me, if you're going to do that." She threw him a half-grin that actually looked a bit more normal. Returning it, he climbed to his knees.

"Don't think I can do that. But I can at least give you some company."

"Fine. I'll let you carry my glider."

The wind had picked up since they'd entered the tiny shelter, though it was partly blocked by buildings as they made their way through the frozen lanes. Miyo still wore his robe, held tightly closed in her fingers as she used her staff to keep balance, and because of that, they easily blended into the surroundings. To anyone who glimpsed outside, they were just two tribespeople, struggling through a late autumn night to get to their destination.

They walked in silence for almost the entire distance, both deep in thought. From time to time, Hikoshu would glance at Miyo to see if she was alright. She worried at her lip, snow-coated lashes hiding eyes focused on her feet, and there were obviously clouds rolling somewhere behind her wrinkled forehead. But that dull, stunned look was gone, and she seemed a lot more like her usual, troubled self.

When they finally arrived at the hut used by all visiting airbenders, his concerns had shifted. Though Hikoshu's mind lingered on Mayami and that final, gruesome sight of her grandfather, he found himself just as worried about leaving Miyo alone when he had no answers yet. What if they really didn't know who would be attacked? What if anyone could be the next victim?

Miyo didn't seem to share his fears, bidding him goodnight without even inviting him in. But she did hug him again, and whispered for him to be careful. As if she had more worries about his safety than her own. A moment later, she slipped inside her hut.

Hikoshu wasn't sure how careful he needed to be. After all, how careful _could_ he be when he didn't even know what was hiding out in the tundra? As he trudged back through the village, intent on checking on Mayami one more time, he dwelled on the events of the preceding night. He wasn't completely defenseless; Hikoshu had felt the attacks as they happened. And he had heard noises—unusual noises, both before and after the attacks. So what did it mean? Was he somehow already able to pick up on the spirit's actions? He hadn't experienced anything like it during the other deaths. Was it limited by distance, or had he simply just gained this ability?

And if he was in tune with this spirit, did it mean he really could contact it? Was it only a matter of _when_, rather than _how_?

Half-consciously, he began listening for the footsteps—anticipating a stab of pain through his head. But this time, if it happened, he would be prepared. He would try to latch on to it and search out its source. All he needed was for it to strike once more.

So focused was he on expecting this new attack, Hikoshu didn't really notice the figure approaching until it was right on top of him. And when he did, it jarred him so completely out there in the cold, lonely night that he gave a surprised shout and jerked back into a bending stance.

Quivianik, still closing the distance between them, was unrecognizable in the shadows of the huts and his hood. But the long fringe of tiger-seal fur that hung loosely from his coat collar quickly identified him as a Shaman, and Hikoshu could see the black circle of beard that formed a ring around his mouth. This, combined with a stride that swallowed the snow as he approached and broad shoulders that were thrown back as if readying for an attack, immediately told Hikoshu who it was.

"You're needed in the kashiq now." Quivianik rarely minced words. By far the brusquest Shaman, he said everything with an undercurrent of threat, and his formidable size merely reinforced the idea. "Come on."

"I was just going to check on Mayami." He slowly relaxed his guard in front of Quivianik, who, despite being somewhat shorter than Hikoshu, still gave the impression of towering over him.

"She's already with the trout-crow clan." The implication being that Hikoshu wasn't going to see her tonight, and Quivianik certainly didn't look like he was going to accept further argument on the matter. "On the other hand, the meeting is waiting for you."

"Alright then." He gestured the Shaman on, having no recourse. "I guess I'll talk to her later." Quivianik gave a short nod that said he had expected no less and turned on his heel, his stocky yet muscular form spinning lithely. With one last glance in the direction of Mayami's hut—her former hut, he corrected himself sadly—Hikoshu followed.

There were no lights coming from the rotunda of the kashiq. Silently, it loomed over the village, the delicate ice carvings that graced its roof by day now cast with unspoken menace by moonlight. Uncertain if there was anyone inside, Hikoshu quickly realized that the long, narrow row of high-set windows was frozen shut, set to block light as well as sound from getting out.

Walking quickly upon the entryway, Quivianik didn't need help to open the heavy ice doors; he was a powerful enough bender that he twisted through a basic move, drawing his arms apart, and the decoratively-framed doors easily responded.

Now light flooded over them, and as they entered, so did warmth. All the fire pots inside had been lit, making the chamber brighter than he'd ever seen it. As there was no smoke hole, the ceiling of the room was filling rapidly with smoke, hovering languidly over the group of men gathered far below it.

The chief and eight Shamans, including Natquik, were seated around the etched carving of the Water Tribe seal in the center of the floor. Though they were all engaged in quiet conversations, the nine men were obviously waiting. They looked up from their place in a circle the moment that Hikoshu entered, and continued to stare as Quivianik bended the door shut. There were cisterns of water at nine points on the edges of the room, and each of these corresponded to the position of a Shaman. That meant one position was empty, and Quivianik took this final spot.

So now they all regarded Hikoshu silently, and he wondered if he was supposed to make some ceremonial introduction.

Atua fortunately saved him the trouble, gesturing for Hikoshu to sit beside him. "Good, we can begin now."

He bowed to the nine august men, made some sort of apology that he wasn't sure they heard, and quickly took a seat on Atua's right, the crest of the sigil's wave falling just below his knee. In front of him, he quickly scanned the faces. All of the Shamans in the village were there, come now to discuss a matter that was officially Shaman business. Kinu and Tati, Natquik and Quivianik. Hikoshu noted their names like a list. Moja, Yoshu, Pikata, Son, Tanek. And finally, Atua, seated next to him. They all paused on the moment of calm, as if waiting for a silent reminder to continue.

Then, suddenly, it was chaos.

Half of the nine Shamans began talking almost immediately, and there was very little order to who was supposed to speak first. Nearly all of these individuals, ranging from the youngest in Natquik to the oldest in Kinu, were hard-headed, convinced that they had the most power, and unwilling to be overwhelmed by the others. The result was a group of men who often argued just to show their own dominance, which was why such a gathering was so rarely ever called.

"There've been four deaths," Tati said, just as Son corrected him with, "Five." Five deaths? Hikoshu hadn't heard about one of them, then.

"And no matching pattern." That was Yoshu, his gaunt face disappearing behind the rim of a clay cup which he must've brought with him. "No one death is the same as the others."

"Not true. Not true," Moja said, shaking his head. Bells jingled as he did so, woven into the thick brown braids of his hair, and his energetic eyes that showed the whites all around darted to each Shaman. "There were two deaths by burning. Two deaths." He'd always been a little strange, as long as Hikoshu knew him. Natquik had said he was struck by lightning once when he was young. Or perhaps kicked by a buffalo-yak. No one really remembered.

"But skinned alive? Missing bowels?" That was Pikata, speaking over everyone in his high-pitched voice as he nervously tugged at the tails of his bundled hair. "And—what was the other one, Natquik?"

"I didn't even know about the other one," he said, just as Quivianik said, "Bled to death, but without any wounds. Or blood."

Pikata, nearer in Natquik's age than the others, nodded and squeezed his knees in his hands. "These are too different. It's almost as if the spirit's coming up with these murders at random."

"Spirits are not random." Kinu spoke for the first time, but his voice cut through their conversations like a fire whip. He was so respected that every Shaman stopped to listen, all eyes now on him. "They come to us with a purpose, or they are sent to us with a purpose. But they _always_ have a purpose." Silence answered him, foreboding though Hikoshu wasn't quite sure why. They'd heard something in Kinu's words that he had simply missed.

"You think it's being controlled?" Tati asked in a hushed voice, expressing the dark, collective thought that had eluded Hikoshu. His tone, as in the hut with Utt, held an ominous note.

"We can't jump to conclusions." Kinu seemed as unconcerned as ever, his long eyebrows shifting around his mouth as he wrinkled his brow. "But there are only two options. The spirit acts on its own, or it acts through the will of another. And I have never seen a spirit acting on its own break through so many wards."

"We've never seen a spirit like this at all," Pikata added before Kinu's words had a chance to settle into morbid silence again. "We have no idea what we're up against."

Tanek gave a discouraged groan, rubbing at one eye tiredly. "Why don't we consult the North on this matter?" Leaning his cheek against his palm, he turned to look at Quivianik to his left. "It's only attacking Northern Water Tribe members, after all."

"No. It attacked Minoq just before this meeting," Atua said, bowing his head. "He was a walrus-bear clansman." A clan which was distinctly Southern Water Tribe. Not that Atua really needed to say it; even Hikoshu knew that Mayami's grandfather had been born in the South Pole.

"Then what?" Moja seemed to be getting frustrated now, and when he got frustrated, he got animated. His hands flitting through the air rapidly, he swung his body to look both left—where Pikata sat—and right, toward Tati. "What? There has to be some pattern here. What? They're all men over the age of sixty. Over the age of sixty, and _mostly_ Northern Water Tribe. Are most of them Shamans?"

"Two Shamans, three warriors," Tati said, trying to avoid Moja's flying hands. "But two of those warriors were waterbenders."

"Four waterbenders." Quivianik was grim. "Seems like a pattern to me. There just aren't enough of us for that to be unimportant."

"This would be easier to solve if Natquik could tell us how these men are dying," Yoshu said, lowering his cup long enough to pin the younger waterbender with a pert frown. "Surely you've found something."

"For the last time," Natquik fumed from his spot between Pikata and Tanek, "I'm just a healer. I can only tell you what the body tells me."

Pikata turned sharply to face him, his look chastising. "You brought somebody back from the dead, Natquik. If there's any Shaman here who can understand the aspects of death, it's you."

It suddenly became very quiet. And not just a sober quiet, but an awkward quiet. Pikata, realizing how he'd spoken out of turn, directed his gaze elsewhere sheepishly. Not that it mattered, as no one was looking at him anymore.

They were all staring at Hikoshu.

So that was why they'd been harassing Natquik so aggressively about the murders. They all knew how Hikoshu had been stabbed four years before; they all knew how, for a short time, Hikoshu could have been nothing other than dead. And they knew how Natquik, against all physical impossibilities, managed to bring him back, anyway.

Natquik looked just as uncomfortable as Pikata, refusing to meet his eyes. Perhaps thinking that Hikoshu blamed him for using his death to gain notoriety. But most likely feeling ashamed all over again for his actions that day, which had been criticized so heavily. That was, up until now, when they discovered that they had a use for a person who could do such a thing.

What they didn't understand—what no one but Hikoshu knew—was that it wasn't just Natquik's doing that had brought him back. Natquik might have made it possible for him to return to his body, but it was something else that had kept him from dying. An insect-like spirit, hidden in the midst of a swamp, surrounded by a thousand faces…

As he had a million times before, Hikoshu swallowed the memory before its consequences could surface and force him to deal with them. It was now that he had to deal with; he had to help Natquik out of this situation.

"I'm going to try to contact the Spirit World," Hikoshu said into the heavy silence. And his declaration was greeted by even more silence. But why wouldn't it be? They'd probably assumed that was what he'd been doing the entire time. "I'll find the spirit. Before there are any more deaths."

Another long pause, as they all stared. Even Pikata was now studying him, though Natquik still wouldn't meet his eyes. Finally, Kinu spoke.

"Will you need help, Master Avatar?"

"No, that's fine. I'll just…I'll need someplace spiritual." Every time Hikoshu had visited the former Avatar Sidhari, it was through meditation or a location with strong spiritual energies. Maybe that was what he needed here.

The Shamans glanced among themselves, likely trying to puzzle through what he meant. To the Southern Water Tribesmen, every location was spiritual, as everything in nature had a spiritual essence. And the looks they gave each other indicated that the Shamans were wondering how to explain this to him.

"I might know somewhere," Natquik volunteered, finally meeting Hikoshu's gaze with mutual understanding. "It's not close, though. It'll take some traveling to get there."

That sounded perfect. Inherently, Hikoshu knew he would need to be away from the village before he could contact the Spirit World. With so many emotions—so much grief—created from the tragedy that evening, he imagined that spiritual detachment within or near this place would be difficult to achieve for quite some time. But out there in the tundra, away from the fear and blame….

The conversation had slowly recommenced around him, the Shamans moving on to debate the next steps to take. Which villages should they contact? How to address the funerals as well as the spreading rumors? Yet even as the Shamans readied for a dawn that could only be a few hours away, Hikoshu's thoughts remained stuck on that night.

On Mayami, on the deaths, and on a spirit who for now existed simply as footsteps in the snow.

* * *

**A/N: **As always, thanks to my wonderful beta, Inazuma Akai! I know there wasn't much revealed in this chapter, but that's because it's all being saved for the next chapter or two. Expect a lot more revelations then.


	10. Ch 9: Rajio Bay

**Chapter 10 - Rajio Bay**

* * *

Hikoshu was terrified of flying.

No, that wasn't enough. He was _petrified_ of flying. But, as Natquik spent the next day arguing to him, Miyo's air bison was the only way to get there and back before the storms. Where was there? Natquik wouldn't say, but he assured Hikoshu it would take three days via bison, where it would normally take a week or longer via sled.

Besides, as Natquik insisted, Hikoshu had mastered airbending and practically spent two months on the back of a bison. And used an air glider. _Twice_. He couldn't be scared of heights now.

What the waterbender was neglecting was the fact that it had been four years since his last run-in with Rosma, the previous bison, and in that ensuing time, Hikoshu had grown quite accustomed to being on ground again. Still, Natquik had a point. It wasn't as if he'd had a traumatic experience riding Rosma. So he really had no reason to fear this new bison, even if it was a different bison altogether. And if they ended up stranded in the middle of an infamous South Pole blizzard because they'd taken too long to get home, then he'd really have something to worry about. With such persuasive arguments, Hikoshu eventually caved. Three days in the air wouldn't be the end of the world.

The next step was convincing Miyo, whom Natquik had conveniently forgotten to ask about the plan while he was still talking Hikoshu into doing it. He possibly thought their combined wills might goad her into agreeing. Which was a terrible idea, because Miyo couldn't be goaded into anything.

Hikoshu had thought so, anyway. But as the three walked through the ice fields outside of town in order to avoid eavesdroppers, he watched in amazement as Natquik actually talked her into going along. And Hikoshu had to marvel at how easily she allowed herself to be talked into it. Almost as if she welcomed a reason to get away from the village.

So then the plan was set: leave the next day, be back within the week. All that was left for him to do was to talk to Mayami. Hikoshu hadn't seen her since the night of the attack, and he had begun to suspect that was on purpose. She was too conveniently missing in the places he thought to look for her, her friends far too quiet on her whereabouts. Yet, surprisingly, Hikoshu didn't feel hurt by the apparent avoidance; after all, what could he say to her? Perhaps Mayami was a little more realistic than him in knowing that they didn't have much to talk about.

Still, Hikoshu couldn't leave without speaking to her—without knowing that she'd be alright. While Miyo and Natquik went about making preparations, he searched the village. Scoured it, virtually, because Mayami was good at hiding when she wanted to. Finally, a helpful tip from a mutual friend who actually felt a little sorry for him led him outside of town yet again, to a gulley that flushed snow melt into the lake. Right now, it was unimpressive—a simple shallow ditch forming a broad line down the hill. But in the summer when everything thawed, it would create a cascade that could easily drown a careless person.

Hikoshu followed its length to the top of the large hill, finally finding Mayami hidden inside a rock formation that had been hollowed out by the summer melts. She didn't look up from her tiny nook as he approached, her back against the gray rock as she twisted an ice ring around her finger. Her eyes were a bruised color from tears, her winsome smile now lost to a frown that tugged at the dotted tattoo by her lips.

"Want to tell me why you've been avoiding me?" he asked with no introduction, clasping the rock as he leaned down to talk to her. Her knees tucked up toward her chest, Mayami merely shrugged and dragged her braid into her lap to pick at it absently. "Want to tell me anything?"

Another evasive shrug.

The day was brilliant. No clouds, no wind: it barely felt like winter at all. And if it weren't for the sun hanging low in the northern sky, he could have fooled himself into thinking it was a few months earlier. But it was still chilly, whether from the season or from Mayami's cold shoulder, he wasn't sure. Sighing, Hikoshu seated himself beside the rock, outside of the narrow alcove that she had crawled into. In front of him, the shallow gulley slid downhill to the lake, and beyond it, the world was obscured by a white so stark that he almost wished he'd brought his visor.

"I kind of miss green things," he said idly, if only to fill the silence. "I mean, snow is great. Wonderful. Can't get enough of it. But nothing grows here. It's always so barren."

"You came all the way out here to insult my home?" she asked. Which at least meant she was talking, though he didn't think it was progress.

"I'm not intending to. Most of the time, I love it here. I'm happy being with you." It didn't get a response from her.

Hikoshu would quickly admit he wasn't very good at talking out emotional things. It wasn't like his fellow Fire Sages would come running to him with quandaries about their love-lives-gone-awry. And Mayami wasn't a very emotional person, which was making this even harder. Usually she was the one teasing him about being too moody. Yet now that she was genuinely sad, Hikoshu found himself at a loss.

"You know," he continued after a moment, "sometimes in the summer, this gulley reminds me of a silk-washing stream." Actually, it was too fast for a stream, but it was the closest thing they had to one this far inland. "Know anything about silk-washing?" She didn't respond, which he took as a 'no.' "Silk is a very delicate, but also a very tough, fiber. After a while, though, it begins to wear out. Even washing it takes a little bit out of the fabric each time."

"I'm not following, Hikoshu."

"Just let me finish," he said quickly. "Imagine you're the silk. You've been stained, worn, wrung out. You're tough, but you're also not as tough as you used to be. And when you go into that stream, it takes a little more out of you. But it also cleanses you—gives you a fresh start."

"So I'm the silk, my grandfather's death is the stain, and my grieving is the stream?" Her voice was wry, which actually made the metaphor sound a bit less impressive than he'd intended. "And I'm eventually going to be so overburdened by death and grief that I'll literally rip?" Alright, a lot less impressive. "Thanks for cheering me up."

"Forget the metaphor. It was a bad metaphor. Instead of the silk, let's say you're the stream. And during the winter—during the tough times in life—you freeze up. But come summer, you'll always melt and start off stronger than you were before."

A long pause. "Do streams even freeze in the Fire Nation?"

They didn't. "That's not the point."

"Hikoshu, just give the metaphors a rest, please? You can just _say_ that I'm sad now, but everyday it'll get a little bit better."

Hikoshu leaned his head against the rock to stare at the sky, searching the blue vainly for support. "I used to have a mentor who could put things into perspective like that, with a really nice metaphor. Thought maybe it could help you."

"But life isn't a metaphor. Nor is it a stream. People don't get into rivers and have all their griefs or their mistakes washed away. If anything, our miseries are like the _sand _in the stream. No matter how much water flows over us, we never lose the sand. It's always there at the bottom, slowly scraping away at us until there's nothing left."

Hikoshu let her jaded words hang in the air before he answered. "You know, actually, I think I liked my metaphor better."

Mayami heaved a sigh and finally leaned out of the rock structure to give him a sad, and tired, smile. But it faded quickly, and she stared at the ground as if facing another hard moment.

"We can't see each other anymore, Hikoshu." She then straightened, disappearing back into the rock. He didn't ask for an explanation, but she apparently felt like she needed to give one, anyway. "My grandfather was so upset about us. He told me not to get involved with the Avatar—said that bad things happen to those the Avatar loves. And I guess he was right."

It stung. A lot. "You really think I'm the reason your grandfather died?"

"It doesn't matter." Hikoshu noted that wasn't a denial. "My grandfather's dead, and nothing will change that. But he wanted me to be married by the end of next summer, so that's what I'll do."

"Are you leaving, then?"

"Within the next week or two. There's nothing really to keep me here."

Hikoshu had always known she would have to join her future husband at some point; he just hadn't anticipated the possibility of losing her so soon. Nor had he anticipated how he'd feel about being lumped so carelessly with the term 'nothing.'

But he understood. He might be hurt, but he definitely understood. They had never meant for anything lasting to happen between them, and as always, Mayami was true to her word. So that was that. Time for them to go their separate ways.

"It was fun for the little while it lasted, wasn't it?" he murmured.

"Yeah, Hikoshu. It was fun."

He wished he could say that Mayami was the only one who laid the deaths at his feet. That Natquik had been wrong in his prediction. But in a small community, when terrible, unexplainable things happened, the tendency was to blame those who didn't belong. And though Miyo was more of a stranger than he, she also wasn't a firebender.

That wasn't entirely fair. The concealed looks and aloof acknowledgments the villagers gave him weren't just because they blamed him as a firebender. The fact was that Hikoshu was the Avatar. And as the Avatar, he was supposed to protect them from things like this. If he couldn't even protect the small village he called home, how could he defend them all from things like the outside world? More than betrayal, they were hurt by his failure to do the one thing he was meant to do.

It was the coldest they'd been to him in four years. Even his foster clan—the family that he turned to for support because of his less-than-impressive survival skills—treated him differently at meals and in passing. To be honest, he would've preferred to travel to Natquik's undisclosed spiritual place by polar-dog sled for more reasons than his fear of flying. Anything that would keep him away from the village as long as possible.

The morning for them to leave couldn't arrive soon enough. Naturally, there was no fanfare—no well-wishers or even curious passersby. In fact, only Kinu came to see the bison off, his boots leaving tracks in the crystalline snow as he met them out in the tundra. Hikoshu hadn't yet climbed into the saddle, waiting until the last possible moment to fortify his nerves. So he was the first to greet the old Shaman when he approached.

"I thought I would miss you," Kinu said with large, fogging breaths, his light blue eyes wrinkling along fine lines formed from decades of squinting. "You're pretty far from the edge of the village."

"We wanted to be discreet in our departure." Hikoshu gave him a respectful bow, which he acknowledged with an incline of his head. "Everyone's already stressed enough as it is."

Kinu nodded, then glanced from him to the top of the bison. Miyo was on its neck, securing the reins to its horns, while Natquik, obscured by its massive gray belly, was on the other side throwing up gear. Snuffling, the bison shook its head and Miyo chastised it harshly as she clung to a horn.

"I wanted to speak with you before you left, Hikoshu." Kinu's attention returned to him, and his loose, cottony hair caught on the wind. "On what you're about to do."

Hikoshu brushed it off even before he finished speaking. "It's nothing to worry about. I deal with spirit stuff all the time." Another exaggeration, but it was an Avatar thing to say.

"Still, I don't know what kind of spirit you're dealing with now." Kinu reached around his neck with gloved hands and pulled a band from out of his coat. Drawing the leather thong over his head, he then took one of Hikoshu's hands and folded the pendant in his palm. "Just to be safe, you should take this."

"What is it?" It was heavy, and when he twisted it around with his fingers, he discovered a figurine of cream-colored bone—a masked dhole, carved so that it sat on its haunches, its paws drawn toward its chest as its snout stuck forward, alert.

"It's a talisman. One of my few prized possessions. And when you get to my age, I assure you there aren't many possessions you prize." Though Hikoshu had rarely seen Kinu grin, the one he wore now seemed to fit his face perfectly. "This was given to me by Natquik's and Mayami's great-grandfather, in the hopes that it would protect me in my own journeys into the Spirit World. I give it to you now for the same reason."

Hikoshu was at a loss for words. Kinu—the Shaman who'd ridden him to the point of surrender—had been to the Spirit World. It was the first time Hikoshu had met another person who had seen the other side and may understand its mechanisms. Yet even as he discovered a newfound desire to learn from his teacher, he realized the opportunity had already passed. Perhaps someday, in the future.

So, nodding, Hikoshu slipped the leather band around his neck and took Kinu's proffered hand, clasping his elbow as the Shaman clasped his. They stood like that for a moment, and then Kinu let go, turning to retrace his trail.

"Master Kinu!" Hikoshu shouted just as he started away. Kinu hesitated, throwing a glance over his shoulder. "Any final advice?"

"Don't relieve yourself on anything before visiting the Spirit World. It always angers some spirit." With one last grin, he headed off, his steps slow in the deep snow.

"Hey." Hikoshu jerked back at Natquik's voice, then ducked to see him between the bison's six legs. He leaned over in a similar position, his hood falling over his head. "What did Kinu want?"

"To wish me luck?" Natquik didn't seem like he believed that.

"You boys can stay down there in the cold," Miyo said above them, and they both straightened to see her kneeling on the bison's neck, one hand clinging to the saddle for support. "But Tehsa's getting restless. We need to take off."

Obediently, they both bended themselves into the saddle—Natquik with snow, Hikoshu with air. Then, within a few, painful moments reminiscent of past terrors, they were off the ground and in the sky.

******xXxXxxxXXxxxXxXx**

To Hikoshu, those three days in the air made four years melt away. Perhaps they looked a little older—Miyo now had the calm, distant manner of an Air Nomad, Natquik was much more somber, and even the bison had changed—but below all of that, it was just like old times. The wind whipped Miyo's hair around as she sat wreathed in orange robes in her usual spot on the bison's neck, and Natquik leaned over the lip of the bamboo saddle as he always would in order to pester her.

And Hikoshu huddled somewhere near the center of the saddle, trying—as usual—to avoid any accidental glimpses over the bison. He kept repeating that he shouldn't be this terrified. His last trip on a bison had allowed him to become accustomed enough to flying to get over his illogical fear. But four years had effectively erased that immunity, and his constant mental berating did nothing to lessen his anxiety.

Occasionally, over the three days, Miyo would hop into the back of the saddle in order to reassure him, or mock him if she felt his nerves could take it. And at night, when they landed to make camp in the monotonously snowy tundra, she would make sure to tease him then, too. But he could never share the same love of flying that both Natquik and Miyo seemed to enjoy, even with his title of "master airbender."

"There has never been an airbender who doesn't know how to fly," Miyo said at one point, having crawled into the back of the saddle with him and Natquik. Natquik, seated next to her opposite Hikoshu's perch in the center, merely shrugged and rested his arm along the bamboo edge.

"He flies when he needs to, and that's probably good enough." Natquik rarely came to his defense against Miyo, which was simply a testament to Miyo's merciless teasing. Ungrateful, and still mildly nauseated, Hikoshu scowled.

"I don't see me having any reason to fight mid-air battles, thank you."

"Really, Hikoshu, you were doing so well. If you revert back to this ridiculous paranoia every time you _aren't_ in the air, then who's to say an enemy won't use that against you?"

"So all he has to fear is an enemy who can build flying war machines," Natquik said sarcastically, and Miyo twisted toward him with a level frown. He didn't seem to notice. "I don't know, Hikoshu, better start preparing now."

"If they ever do that, I'm afraid the world will just have to be doomed." Then Tehsa tilted right on a wayward gust, and conversation ended abruptly as his vertigo resumed.

Three days of that, more or less. When they finally got to wherever Natquik wanted them to go, Hikoshu didn't even know it. The horizon was the same kind of endless blue, though he could see a gathering of clouds just above the lip of the saddle. They billowed high on top of each other, their deepest bellies a murky gray.

Miyo was the first to comment on them, anxious from Tehsa's neck. "Natquik, those clouds don't look very safe." Distracted, the waterbender glanced up from the binding he had reworked on the hilt of his knife, the blade firmly wedged between his knees.

"It's too early for storms. Probably just a _qanialak_." Then, with a sidelong look to Hikoshu, he added, "A snow flurry." The patronizing translation made him roll his eyes. Natquik finally resheathed his knife and turned in his spot to peek over the edge of the saddle. "Actually, circle the mountain. It's on the other side."

"What?" Miyo's voice was sharp, and suddenly her head appeared over the saddle, her expression one of accusation as her hair flew around her.

"Around the mountain," he repeated nonchalantly, as if failing to catch her suddenly guarded demeanor. "You can't miss it." Miyo stared at him hard for several long, uncomfortable seconds. Then, groaning, she pressed her palm to her temple.

"Natquik, you said we weren't!"

"He said we weren't what?" Hikoshu asked, his apprehension growing in leaps.

"Well, if I'd said we were, you wouldn't have given us a ride." He was still nonchalant about it.

"Said we weren't what?"

"This is a bad idea, Natquik. A very bad idea."

"Hey! What'd he do?"

Now Natquik had the audacity to look guilty, but he gave a vague shrug, and Miyo glared at him. The ensuing silence held no answers, nor did it do anything but fray Hikoshu's frazzled nerves even more.

Miyo was the first one to break the silence, finally turning to Hikoshu with genuine sympathy. "We're going to Rajio Bay."

"What?" His tone was the same as Miyo's.

Even before Hikoshu could round on him, Natquik was holding his hands up defensively. "Listen, you asked for the most spiritual place in the South Pole. And there is literally no place more spiritual than this."

"No way! Natquik, I can't convene with any spirit at Rajio Bay. That's—that's—"

"Sacrilege? Insanity? Suicide?" Miyo supplied, and Natquik shot her an irritated look. "Please, stop me when you get the point."

"He is the Avatar. He has nothing to worry about!"

"I'm a firebender, Natquik. Who has any idea what could happen?"

"Exactly," Natquik interrupted Hikoshu quickly, turning as he stabbed a finger at the air. "You don't know what would happen. Yes, the bay has a bad history. But the truth is that there are very few places in the world that don't. If you fear a spirit is going to target you for something you did in the past, then you wouldn't get too far outside your own hut. But you need a place that is most connected to the Spirit World, and for non-Tribesmen, Rajio Bay is that place. So why bother only _assuming_ the events of forty-five years ago will have a negative impact on you when this is our best chance at saving people's lives?"

He hated to admit it, but Natquik was right. Hikoshu's fear of Rajio Bay was almost cultural in nature; after all, the Water Tribes didn't believe in spirits acting maliciously on their own, but the Fire Nation certainly did. So were his concerns legitimate, or was he simply reacting to old ghost stories? The only time a spirit had really posed a threat to him was when he accidentally brought it into the physical world. Otherwise, he couldn't be harmed while in his spirit form.

...could he?

Hikoshu pushed the fear away. Regardless of it, Natquik still had a point. He didn't know what to expect, and his overreactive caution wasn't worth risking more lives.

"Of all the crazy plans, Natquik," Miyo scolded, propping herself over the saddle in order to lecture him. "You're a Southern Water Tribesman! Surely you realize how badly this could turn out."

"But he's right." Hikoshu's abrupt agreement made her snap her now wide-eyed gaze toward him. "Well, it's the most spiritual place, and I _have_ to find out what's going on. Besides, the Spirit World doesn't scare me. I'm the Avatar, after all." He wasn't sure if that fact really would protect him from any vengeful spirits, but he filled his statement with as much reassurance as he could muster. Miyo only seemed partially mollified as she tried to see past his façade.

"And we'll be right there in case he needs us," Natquik continued, which seemed to relieve her uneasiness a little more. Finally, she nodded and slipped back behind the saddle. Without another word, the bison turned, presumably toward a mountain peak that Hikoshu couldn't yet see from the saddle.

"You sure about this?" Hikoshu murmured right before the bison began to land. Almost refusing to meet his eyes, Natquik didn't look nearly as sure as he'd hoped.

"Of course," he said anyway. "Trust me."

Hikoshu didn't trust him, but at this point, the bison was descending and he was forced to grip the bamboo and hide his head as he always did during landings. This was by far the worst part of flying—the sensation of falling, hurtling toward the ground, with nothing but a bison between him and imminent death. It was the very essence of why he hated flying: the fact that, once in the air, he would have to come back down again.

What certainly felt like hours, but was most probably minutes, later, the bison's feet jolted against the ground, and shaken, Hikoshu jumped out of the saddle. He airbended himself gently to the snow just as Natquik appeared beside him. It inevitably took a few moments to steady his knees as well as his heart, and he focused on the ground while he did so. Ridiculous paranoia. He really was going to have to work on it. Finally, taking a deep breath, he looked up and scanned the horizon.

There wasn't much to see. Rising from the snow was the rather unremarkable mountain that Natquik had mentioned, white except for the sprinkling of black rock that stuck through. Between it and them, and quite a bit shorter, a snow dune stretched in either direction, a barrier of solid white that blared brightly despite the fluffy gray clouds that crept past the northern sun.

The scene was particularly notable only for its lack of water.

"This isn't a bay," Hikoshu said as he turned to Natquik, and the waterbender gave him a look of strained patience. Without warning, he jerked his elbows back—a bending move that Hikoshu didn't have time to recognize before he was thrown over the bison, tossed off of the ground by the ground itself.

There was the momentary surge of fear, quickly staunched by instinct, and he flipped into a landing made softer with airbending. Any complaint at the rough treatment, however, was cut short by the new sight, revealed now that the bison was no longer in his way.

It really was a bay. To either side, the snow plain continued, yet in front of him, the black of the ocean bit into the land to cut a circular swath out of the white. It was a glaring interruption that spanned a distance large enough to make the breaking waves on a far-off headland merely foamy caps.

The bay was impressive, but not nearly as impressive as the four, soaring columns that rose out of the snow, standing just between him and the shore. They were totems of ice, pillars of animal heads that symbolized various clans as well as various spirits. Forming the corners of an invisible square that was itself empty, their faces looked out on the bay.

"The totems are of the clans that were killed here," Natquik said behind him, and Hikoshu felt a welling of guilt that kept him from turning around. "The two trout-crows at the top represent the dead, and the two koala-otters memory."

Conspicuously absent was any tribute to the firebenders who had died. Not even the mast of the ship that the waterbenders had sunk without provocation—the very action that had begun the battle fought here—remained. For years, it had supposedly stuck above the waves of Rajio Bay, but if it ever did, it was now gone.

Bitterness at the idea made him speak. "I thought the Water Tribes didn't believe in memorials."

"Some things are so evil that monuments must be built."

"No," Miyo said sharply, and Hikoshu finally turned to see that she stood between him and Natquik. "You won't have this fight. Rajio Bay has nothing to do with _either_ of you."

She was only partly right. But, instead of arguing, Hikoshu shrugged off his anger and headed for those four pillars. This wasn't something that he could fight out with Natquik; they'd come to a mutual understanding years ago that the war was a fruitless, often infuriating, debate which for the sake of their friendship should be studiously avoided.

The air of Rajio Bay was solemn, as if nothing had changed in the forty-five years since the battle of the same name had been fought. The story, as told by the Fire Nation, was that a Fire Nation merchant ship had docked in this very bay for repairs of damage suffered by heavy ice floes. That night, they were ambushed by Water Tribe warriors, who killed the crew and sunk the ship. According to the Fire Nation, the attack was in retaliation for the supposed kidnapping of the Water Tribe princess. According to the Water Tribes, the sinking of the ship was staged.

Though the initial reports were vague, the response of the Fire Nation was widely disparaged. They immediately sent all nearby ships to the bay to attack the neighboring winter camps, whether or not they had committed the nighttime raid. Every warrior was killed just as the crew had been, the women and children spared to take the story back to the chief.

The first act of aggression in the Ten-Year War, the War of Steam and Smoke. A war that would culminate in the mass slaughter of the Western Air Temple, the imposition of fifteen-year sanctions on the Fire Nation and the Earth Kingdom of Omashu, and the almost-universal hatred of the Avatar for failing to act for so long.

Hikoshu had good reason to dread the spirits of this place.

The sun came out momentarily just as he crossed the transparent boundary of the square, but it did nothing to burn away the bleak atmosphere, the shadow of one column actually chilling him more. The totems, now visible, studied him with frozen eyes, their muzzles and beaks sticking out like ice spears at ready.

Hikoshu couldn't shake the feeling of their gazes, judgmental and cruel, on the back of his neck. But he would have to concentrate if he was going to meditate, and he couldn't do that facing the totems. So seating himself at the center of the square, his back to two of the columns, Hikoshu folded his legs in the snow and looked out over the bay, on a horizon that was quickly filling with a distant wall of clouds.

He then pulled his hood over his head, clasped his hands in his lap, and closed his eyes. Breathing deep, he searched for that place of tranquility somewhere in his chest. Far away from those cold stares.

******xXxXxxxXXxxxXxXx**

Hikoshu hadn't asked them to leave, but Natquik wasn't going to wait around. Watching the Avatar do Avatar things seemed almost irreverent somehow. Besides, he'd seen enough of Hikoshu's powers to never want to see anymore ever again. So he turned away from the distant figure of his seated friend and signaled for Miyo to do the same.

"Let's get your bison into some shelter before it snows."

"But we can't leave him," Miyo said, distraught as she clung to her staff.

"We're going to stay in sight. I just want to keep my things dry and avoid the wet bison smell."

Grudgingly, she again allowed herself to be talked into following him, and patted the bison on the side of its head to get it to follow as well. The hulking beast scooted its six legs through the thick snow, the size of its furry paws serving as natural snowshoes.

A pretty useful trick as they climbed toward higher ground. Natquik could bend the snow under his feet so that he didn't fall in and Miyo could step lightly enough that it didn't matter. But it was only by virtue of the bison's large paws that it didn't sink knee-deep and force him to bend it out.

He had to find a structurally sound point in the snow dune before he could bend a cave into it, which took some time. Miyo's eyes never left the black dot that was Hikoshu, sometimes forcing him to backtrack because she thought it was too far away. Then it took even more time to make the burrow, as his bending skills were mediocre at best and not powerful enough to dig an entire cave in one go. But when he finished, it was sufficiently deep enough that Tehsa could probably stay warm as long as the animal stayed put.

Afterward, Natquik was surprised to see that Hikoshu had still not moved from his spot. As Miyo coaxed Tehsa into the shelter, he stood back and wondered idly how long it would take him to convene with the spirits. He wasn't even sure if Hikoshu had crossed over yet. Was he supposed to disappear? Or start floating like he did in the Avatar State? What sign were they to look for if he was in trouble?

"You did this on purpose."

Natquik turned at the sound of Miyo's voice and found her scowling from the mouth of the cave, her shawl pushed up over one shoulder to reveal an orange sleeved arm that she propped against her hip.

"Did what?"

"Tricked Hikoshu into coming here." Straightening her shawl, she turned back to the groaning Tehsa and rested her hands on its nose with some murmured words. The bison twisted its head and shuffled its feet, but at least it didn't move out of the cave.

"I didn't trick him; I simply didn't tell him everything." He waved over his shoulder, back toward the bay. "I would've talked him into coming eventually—I wasn't lying when I said he had his best chance of contacting the Spirit World through here. But it was going to be a lot harder to convince him of the reality of the situation while in the safety of his own hut."

Finally satisfied that Tehsa would stay, Miyo grabbed her staff from the smooth ice wall and spun around to face him. "I wonder why."

"Come on, Miyo. He's been in the South Pole for four years—_four years—_and he's never bothered once to visit Rajio Bay."

"So you're angry that Hikoshu might not want to remember something so horrible? Or do you think he just doesn't feel guilty enough?" As she marched past, she paused long enough to glare right into his face. Frustrated, he followed behind her.

"I'm not angry, I'm realistic. Have you noticed Hikoshu knows nothing about his previous life? You can't protect him from this. He needs to be aware of his past mistakes." She didn't look back, skidding awkwardly down the slope toward more solid snow. "So you mean to tell me in all of his years at the Western Air Temple, no one ever mentioned the massacre?"

She paused at that, turning her head enough that he saw the outline of her nose. But then she was moving again, and incredulous, he stopped. "You _didn't_ tell him."

The Western Air Temple massacre was a well-understood but little talked about dark point in history. After all of the atrocities committed at Rajio Bay, and all of the years of war, the world had reached its breaking point. Avatar Sidhari had been conspicuously missing for most of the fighting, and the Western Air Nomads, proclaiming neutrality, had chosen to hide the exiled Fire Prince Zenshi and the kidnapped Water Tribe princess Yukona within their temple. What happened next, no one could ever really explain: the Fire Nation had attacked the temple and murdered nearly every nun there. The bodies of the prince and princess were never found.

Despite the mysterious reasons for the slaughter, it effectively ended the war. Sidhari finally intervened, and the Fire Nation was sanctioned, as well as Omashu for aiding in the attacks on the South Pole. But the Water Tribes hadn't yet forgiven the Fire Nation, nor had they forgiven the Avatar for failing to respond sooner.

"He knows about it!" Miyo eventually snapped, her voice muffled. "Everyone knows about it. And there wasn't any reason to make him feel bad about something that had nothing to do with him."

"It's not making him feel bad. It's helping him to realize what happens when powerful people make mistakes."

"No, it's punishment, Natquik." Now she did turn, digging her staff into the snow to regain her balance as her foot slipped. "He's a firebender. And you want to take out everything the firebenders did on him. Air Nomads don't believe in that, though. We don't believe in punishing people for the actions of their ancestors."

"It's not about punishment!" He found it difficult to control his volume when Miyo was berating him so. Even harder to control his expression. "It's about the fact that a previous Avatar did exactly what he's doing now—refusing to address the past. We'd be committing a huge injustice on Hikoshu to let him forget that in order to save his feelings."

Miyo's face warped at that, containing a mixture of anger and agonized sadness that made him wonder if she was on the brink of tears. Her voice, though, was savage. "You don't know what he's been through, Natquik."

"Yes, I do. I was there." And it was precisely the reason why Natquik knew Hikoshu needed to confront his ghosts. Everything he'd done in another life had repercussions, and Hikoshu had already suffered at the hands of some of them. If he tried to avoid learning about the past, he'd simply suffer more. Thus Miyo's refusal to show him reality was overprotective and overly naïve.

But that was who she was. And as she finally relented, her shoulders falling along with her expression, Natquik couldn't fault her. Air Nomad nature was to forgive and forget, yet Water Tribe nature was to remember and understand. It was about time Hikoshu did the same.

"I'm sorry, Natquik. I know you care about him, too. I just…." She struggled with the words, refusing to meet his eyes. "I just don't want anything happening to him again."

"Going to be hard to protect him from that." He pulled an arm around her shoulders, and under his touch, Miyo stiffened then relaxed. "Listen, spirit journeys are supposed to be done alone. He'll be fine out here, so let's give him some privacy." And maybe get her mind off of worrying about him. With a weak nod, she agreed and let him lead her back up the snow ridge, away from the totems.

* * *

**A/N: **Sorry for the delay, everyone. My beta is having a crazy month IRL, and she's really overworked right now. She still wanted to beta this chapter, but I chose to go ahead and post it unbeta'd. She's got enough stress right now without me adding something as unnecessary as a fanfic chapter on her shoulders. Here's hoping she'll be back in the saddle once things calm down for her; until then, unfortunately, I'm afraid you'll just have to bear with any typos or story incongruencies that slip through.

Will post the next chapter in a week or so.


	11. Ch 10: Whispers of a Storm

**Chapter 10 - Whispers of a Storm**

* * *

For Hikoshu, entering the Spirit World was much like trying to fall asleep after wrestling an iguana-goat. His body felt ready to drift off, but his mind, too alert to outside threat, simply wouldn't let him. So for a long time, he meditated and didn't do much else. With thoughts of the totems fading to just outside of his awareness, he focused on his breaths moving past his lips. Steady, warm breaths.

Meditation wasn't a difficult practice, though he hadn't done much of it in the past year. The Water Tribes didn't use meditation nearly as frequently as the Fire Nation; they didn't need the constant self-control—the demand for inner-calm that allowed firebenders to bend without fear of being overwhelmed by their own element. So perhaps he was a little rusty, as it took some time to keep his thoughts from wandering to Mayami, who usually cropped up behind his eyes whenever he was trying hard to concentrate.

Entering the Spirit World, Hikoshu then realized, was also a lot like falling asleep itself. Long after he'd forced Mayami to a darker recess of his thoughts and lost himself in the rhythmic beat of his heart, Hikoshu seemed to fade into the back of his mind, the emptiness of his meditative trance replaced by another emptiness of non-existence. He simply _was_ without reason for being. And if he could think about it—if he could think about anything—he would question if he hadn't simply fallen asleep where he sat.

But as his eyes flew open and his heart slammed into the back of his ribs, Hikoshu was distinctly aware he wasn't dreaming. This was something far more real, but still intangible. Still holding the same qualities of a dream, but with the certain knowledge that he could neither control it nor wake up at will.

Carefully, he pushed himself to his feet and straightened the heavy, crimson silk robes of his old Fire Sage uniform. Despite the thick swaths of elaborately trimmed fabric that enveloped him, Hikoshu didn't feel unusually warm. Nor, when he moved, did the tall, conical hat slip down his head as it would have done in the physical world. He couldn't see himself, but Hikoshu didn't need to; he wore this attire because it had come to represent him even in his own mind. A Fire Sage was how he identified himself, and in the brief moments it took for him to adjust to the new environment, Hikoshu felt a rare pang of homesickness.

It faded quickly as he examined his surroundings. He wasn't in the South Pole anymore. Or perhaps he was, though it looked nothing like Rajio Bay. The ground below his feet was the only source of light, the smooth, ice-like surface emitting a muted white glow. The glow didn't reach very far, as above him, the sky was an inky black. It seemed to roll on itself, as if the black made up waves, and occasionally, a shape of an even deeper ebony crept among the folds.

From the writhing night hung a forest of kelp, their ends swaying with thin, feather-like fronds over the faintly glowing floor. They were as thick as a person, their leaves dotted with snow, and from the dark sky fell heavier flakes. Reaching out, Hikoshu caught one of them in his palm and realized that they weren't cold. Nor were they snow—they were bubbles, the tiny spheres bursting against his skin.

"Hello?" he called, and it sounded like he was shouting through water. His voice, muffled and distant, didn't seem to reach past the reddish-green kelp beside him. No one answered him, as Hikoshu half-expected, and the world remained empty except for the kelp.

And…

Hikoshu felt the same presence as he'd felt in the lake. His neck itched under an unknown gaze—the pressing, suffocating feel of something wanting his attention. As he turned to search the ice, it was almost as if he were drowning again.

Then there it was: a figure, not a dozen yards away, crouching on the ice. The faint light was enough to catch its clothing—its parka, washed gray, not in any style that Hikoshu recognized, and a braided string of feathers that seemed to float around its neck. In front of it was a large hole cut into the ice, from which a brilliant light shone. Yet even with that, its face was disguised under wet, matted hair, and the night seemed to rest on its hunched shoulders like a cloak.

Abruptly, Hikoshu had an overwhelming desire to leave before it saw him—and a crippling fear that he couldn't. But he knew with absolute certainty that this was the spirit from the lake, and though some deeper, more primal part of him told him he should not go near it, a higher kind of reasoning dictated that he would get far more answers if he did.

Hikoshu moved toward it, though his legs didn't work quite as well as he'd expected. Like running in a dream. Or walking through water. Slowly, advancing with painstaking steps, he crept closer to the spirit, and the spirit held still on the ice as unseen eyes burned into him. _Don't come closer_, something whispered, and he wasn't really sure if those weren't his own thoughts. _Don't come closer_…

Then, suddenly, the spirit slipped through the hole in the ice.

It moved like a wisp of smoke, or a diving tiger-seal. So quickly that Hikoshu only knew it went through the hole because he could not imagine it climbing upward into the black. Moments or days later—time flowed so strangely in the Spirit World—Hikoshu reached that hole, as well, and knelt in order to stare into the dazzling light.

Then, beyond his awareness or control, he was falling through the hole, too. No, crawling—sweeping—flying. He was moving, or perhaps the world was moving around him, up instead of down. Everything flashed white as he resurfaced on the other side, spluttering for air he didn't need, soaking wet, his lungs hurting the same as they had the day he fell in the lake. With a groan, Hikoshu dragged himself across the snow-covered ground, though it wasn't cold and the flakes more resembled gharial-goose down than snow.

When he finally got to his feet, quite suddenly dry, he was now in a different world. The sky was as white as the feather-snow, and downy-flakes floated languidly to the ground to form hills of soft, inviting fluff. It was the opposite of the place he'd just left, and confused, Hikoshu turned back to the hole.

The hole was gone. Instead, he was greeted by a forest of soapstone trees which hid the horizon. They covered the hills of feather-snow, deep shadows blending seamlessly with their delicately carved branches of white. No feature, not the bark or even the veins of the leaves, had been forgotten, details so fine that the trees seemed alive. He stood at the very edge of this petrified forest—a sea of fake snow to one side, an ocean of fake trees to the other.

There was no wind, and the canopies were deathly silent. Yet he could hear _something_, barely on the edge of perception. The whispering of silk along the stone. Or maybe the echoes of whispered voices in the leaves. And then the sensation of someone watching. It was different, though, from the gaze he'd felt earlier. The heavy, almost stifling sense of dread was gone, as well as the consuming need to run. Instead, the stares were numerous, angry, and everywhere. The same kind of cruel judgment as he had felt among the totems.

"They won't come out," a deep voice said. Wheeling around, Hikoshu was confronted with a young man, narrow-shouldered, slender, who hadn't been there a moment before. He stood among the flakes, though none seemed to touch the unusual parka he wore. It had a yellowish hue, no fur—likely a fishing jacket, worn by someone who spent most of his time at sea.

Starting toward him, the darkly-skinned man smiled a smile of pristine white, nearly all of his teeth showing. His black hair fell in shaggy layers around his face, framing warm blue eyes, and pierced through the corner of his lip was a small, round bone disc, decorated with turquoise. Despite his exotic appearance, the man looked familiar. Extremely familiar. As if Hikoshu could look in a mirror and see the same person.

"Who else is here?" he asked. The man shrugged and stuck his hands in that fishing coat as he came to a stop in front of Hikoshu.

"Spirits, of course. Unhappy ones."

"Is that why Avatar Sidhari isn't here to meet me?"

"She has bad history with this place," he said in agreement and brushed a handful of hair out of his too-familiar eyes. "Or…well…not with _this_ place. But with the spirits of this place. She doesn't come here often."

"So you'll be helping me, Avatar Kwandek?"

"As much as I can, but I don't have a very good relationship with the locals either." Kwandek scanned the environs with mock uncertainty. "The curse of being the exact same person. They don't like me anymore than they like her. Or you."

"But you said they won't bother us."

"Well, that's the blessing of being the Avatar. Not many spirits will."

The odd noise had grown in the meantime, and now it seemed distinctly like whispers. A thousand whispers, coming from every dark crevice, always just out of sight. Yet when he turned his head quick enough, Hikoshu could catch a glimpse of shadows in the trees. Moving.

"So you've come asking about a spirit," Kwandek stated, taking the opportunity to circle Hikoshu in examination. The sensation of a spirit studying him made the hair stand on the back of his neck, and he simply nodded. "Care to explain?"

"You know as much as I. Water Tribesmen are dying—a lot of them. And we don't know who's killing them, nor why."

"Wish I could help you on that, but I don't keep track of the spirits." He circled back into view, still with that impish grin. "Too many of them. Too little of me." Kwandek had been notorious in his time for his lackadaisical attitude. Even after five generations, he was still remembered with stories of his callousness and disinterest.

"Completely unfounded," Kwandek continued from Hikoshu's train of thought. "I just got tired of talking out one side of my mouth and lying out the other. Turns out people don't like it when you stop doing that."

"Please don't read my mind? I'm happy to tell you what I'm thinking." He tried to suppress the annoyance in his voice. Not that mattered—Kwandek would notice it, anyway. Coming to a stop in front of him, Kwandek gave Hikoshu another half-grin and yanked on the front of his fishing coat.

"Can't really help it. You keep thinking and I keep reading. The spirit you're looking for is an old one. A lot older than me."

"Older than the Avatar?"

"Older than me." Suddenly, he dropped into the snow, and clouds of fluff billowed around him. Folding his legs under him, Kwandek propped his elbows against his lap. "Don't let these boyish charms fool you. I must be well over 300 years old now." He paused briefly, as if expecting Hikoshu to laugh. "I don't think the spirit is as old as the Avatar, but it hasn't been in the mortal world since I've been alive."

"Then what does that mean? How is it in the mortal world now?"

"My best guess?" An apathetic shrug, and the whispers seemed to grow angrier. "A Water Shaman did it."

Just as Kinu had suggested. Someone was acting on the spirit. "Did it how?"

"However Shamans do it. Blood sacrifice, soul sacrifice. Whatever it takes to bring a very angry spirit to a place where it doesn't belong." Suddenly, Kwandek's nonchalant, amused attitude was gone. "It's either someone very skilled or someone very unskilled. He—or she—intended for this spirit to do some damage, though there's no knowing if this is the damage he intended."

"What damage is it doing, then?"

The whispers _were_ louder, insistent, and Hikoshu tried hard not to listen to them. He wasn't sure he really wanted to hear what they had to say. Kwandek's grin again slowly spread across his face, as if the thought of random deaths tickled him. Or perhaps he was tantalized by the riddle. Perhaps he didn't even care about the deaths. "Ah, who is dying. The answer to that lies in the Northern Water Tribe."

"But it's not killing just Northern Water Tribesmen," Hikoshu protested, which made Kwandek laugh.

"Minoq, is it?"

"His mother clan was Southern."

"Maybe he wasn't born in the North," Kwandek said, and Hikoshu could've sworn he winked. "But that doesn't mean he never lived there. Sidhari specifically remembers him in the North Pole. You might see if anyone else does, too."

So it meant they didn't have to be Northern men. Suddenly, the danger increased a thousand fold. The spirit could still be targeting men from the North, including men who had simply been there. Was it only limited to those who now lived in the South? Or was the Northern Tribe suffering from the same unexplained deaths? Was it even worse for them?

Kwandek whistled. "Oh, I can't answer all those. I can give you the knowledge of the ages—not so much of the 'now.' But I would certainly look into that if I were you."

Frustration welled in Hikoshu, and it took him a few moments to staunch the emotion. "Then tell me how to stop it. You can't tell me who it is, who it's attacking. At least tell me how to keep it from attacking again."

"I said I'd help you as much as I can. That didn't mean I could really help you at all." Kwandek suddenly jumped to his feet, as lightly as if he were an airbender rather than a waterbender. Though, Hikoshu supposed, he technically was both. "The fact is, Hikoshu, neither I nor the Avatar before me has faced this before. This…well, it's something new. But whatever it is, it's causing quite the disturbance here in the Spirit World. Those shadows behind you have never been so angry."

As if agreeing, the whispers hissed fiercely, their unintelligible words vindictive and mocking. Yet the uncomfortable gazes of those spirits weren't what haunted Hikoshu's thoughts.

"Then can you tell me if it has anything to do with that spirit in the lake?"

The whispers abruptly went silent. Even Kwandek stared without responding, and for a moment, Hikoshu wondered if the world had simply frozen. Only the gharial-goose snow proved that time continued, as they fell more softly to the ground, their occasional touch on his skin now cold.

Whatever trance held the spirits was eventually broken when Kwandek spoke. "You already know the answer."

"But I don't know what it means. What part is this spirit playing?"

The whispers had begun again, far less angry now—almost fearful, instead. Kwandek's eyes, which had been trained on Hikoshu in morbid contemplation, then became unfocused, as if Kwandek had spied something horrific in the trees behind him.

The word he started to say had the guttural tones of the Water Tribe language. "_Akitsi—_"

Before he finished the last syllable, Kwandek had vanished.

**XxXxXxXxX**

"Natquik, you didn't," Miyo said with a laugh, reclining her head against her staff. She'd laid the glider along the back of her shoulders, her wrists folding over either side so that her hands hung from it limply. This meant, of course, that Natquik had to walk a short distance to her right, held at bay by the glider.

"Well, how was I supposed to know Hikoshu's a terrible swimmer? He grew up in a fishing village." The top of the snow ridge had been sheered off by strong winds, leaving a large, relatively flat surface that had thawed and frozen again to form a plateau they could easily walk. Still, the abrupt drop-off seemed too close for comfort, and he tried to walk nearer to her. To the North, the black dot that was Hikoshu sat among the totems, glowing and unmoving. As he had for hours now.

"He hasn't been a fisherman's son since he was nine. And I don't think he was all that great of a swimmer then, either." Miyo threw him a mirthful smile that seemed so bright in the fading dusk. The blues and reds of the sunset made the arrows on her hands and forehead stand out.

"Not a great flyer, not a great swimmer. There has to be something he's great at."

"Well, he's a pretty good kisser."

That brought Natquik up short. "Excuse me, Mistress Nun?" She blushed as she looked away.

"I mean…a long time ago." Anxiously, she studied the mountain to the south in order to avoid his eyes, and let silence break the conversation. "Anyway, what were we talking about?"

"Hikoshu, but I'm getting a little tired of the subject." He tried to smother the unusual annoyance building in him.

"Well, that's too bad, because he's about all we have in common." Miyo came to a stop, then, turning to face him in such a way that he had to lean back to dodge her staff. "Without him, we'd have nothing to discuss."

"That's not true. We could talk about…the weather." The staff no longer an obstacle, Natquik could step closer to her. She swayed and took a step back.

"Oh? Like what? How cold it is?"

"I could warm you up, if you want."

Miyo narrowed her eyes at him, and her smile grew bigger even as she stepped back again to match his step forward. "You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

"Don't pretend you wouldn't."

She answered him only with a grin, though she continued to retreat, her cheeks turning just about as red as the western sky.

Then abruptly her expression changed to one of horror as she shot downward. Diving after her, Natquik caught Miyo under her arms before she slid off other side of the ridge, and earned a clock over the head with her staff as a reward. Wincing, he dragged her back up onto the snow. She gasped as soon as she was on her feet and dropped her glider from her neck.

"Natquik, I'm so sorry!" Immediately, Miyo was pawing at the side of his head, as she tended to do when someone was hurt. "How bad is it?"

"It's fine, just a knot," he said hastily, though he didn't loosen his grip on her waist. Her robes felt surprisingly warm under his cold fingers, at odds with how inappropriately dressed she was for the Pole. Slowly realizing that he hadn't released her yet, Miyo let her hands fall away and tried to pull back.

"Are you dizzy?"

"A little." Almost against his own will, Natquik was holding on to her. Now her warmth was soaking through his coat, and he could feel the heat off her ruddy cheeks, see her panicked heart in her wide eyes.

Then she gave a short shake of her head, squeezing those gray eyes shut. The next thing he knew, he had hit the hard snow on his shoulder, nearly sliding over the opposite edge.

"Cut out the flirting, Natquik. I'm a nun and you're about to be married."

"Ow! Come on, Miyo! I was just playing around." He really wished he had been. Sitting up in the snow, Natquik rubbed his arm. "You know how I like teasing you."

"Incorrigible," she sighed, offering him a hand. He accepted it with a sullen groan. "You don't have any other girls to tease, so you have to take it out on me?"

"No, but I enjoy your reactions a lot more." He gave her a roguish smile as he let go of her hand. Yet the smile quickly melted into a frown. "Though now, not quite as much."

That made Miyo grin, and she bridged the distance between them again. "You really are impressed with yourself, aren't you?" Reaching up, she brushed her fingers over the spot where her staff had connected with his head.

"Well, I'm a better flyer and swimmer than Hikoshu. But I'll leave it up to you if I'm a better kisser."

"I…uh…" Again she was red, and she yanked her hand away as if burned. "I don't really…anyway, what were we talking about?" Honestly, her expressions really did make the teasing worth it. Her stammering, her blushing, her ruffled moments when she struggled to regain her nun-like composure. The times when he could break through that collected façade were frequently the times he loved most.

"I think it was the weather."

"Yes…the weather," she murmured absently, her gaze focused on some point beyond his shoulder. Then, suddenly, her eyes widened in terror. "Natquik, the clouds!"

He spun toward the northern horizon past the bay. The skyline was hard to see at first, so dark had the evening grown. But then it dawned on him that twilight wasn't what obscured the sky. There was a wall of clouds on the horizon, billowing toward the bay. Underneath them, the world was nothing but an indistinct gray, the horizon itself invisible.

Now, the calm weather seemed strangely calm. The clouds Miyo had noted earlier had seemed strangely dark. Everything was adding up into a brief appraisal—a quick assessment he'd learned how to do through many Southern winters.

His mouth went dry. "It's a squall."

Natquik didn't even notice that Miyo had moved until he heard her glider snap open. Glancing behind him, he saw her grab the bamboo sails over the back of her shoulders, prepared to leap off the ridge.

"Miyo, wait!" He stepped in front of her, holding out his arms. "You'll never make it."

"I need to get Hikoshu!" Instead of going through him, Miyo went over him; she jumped high into the air as her glider caught a gust. Then she was soaring down the ridge, a speck of orange against the white.

She wasn't going to make it—_couldn't_ make it, not without a waterbender. So taking action before he could even take stock of the situation, Natquik leapt off the ledge after her.

Just as he landed, the snow crystallized into ice around his feet, instinct guiding his bending more than conscious thought. In moments, he was skiing rapidly down the steep slope on a slab of ice, the wind tearing at his eyes as he leaned into it. He had no way of controlling his descent, but that didn't matter. He didn't really intend to reach the bottom.

Miyo was ahead of him, but Natquik was quickly closing the gap, the speed of his slide much faster than the air currents she rode. Still, she was above him, and he couldn't fly. So sweeping an arm in front of him, Natquik forced the snow ahead upward into a ramp, aimed directly for Miyo's path. He braced his knees for the impact, his body jolting as he hit the ramp. And then he was flying, as airborne as an airbender.

Natquik had done things like this a hundred times, when he was young. But he hadn't done them in years, and he certainly hadn't done them with the intention of catching a person mid-air. So it was likely a mixture of skill as well as sheer, impressive luck that allowed him to crash into Miyo. Scrabbling for a handhold, he managed to seize her waist, and she gave a gasp as she struggled to maintain her grip on her glider.

"Natquik! What are you doing?"

"You have to land!"

That wasn't going to be a problem. Or perhaps it was. They jerked violently in opposite directions as she attempted to keep them both up, and the bay far below them pitched across his vision. Then her shawl broke loose from her sash; suddenly free, his fingers were ripped from her waist as his heart sprung into his throat.

"Natquik!" Miyo cried, releasing the glider with one hand to grab his. There was a moment where they wobbled precariously, balanced on the question of whether she would drop the glider or drop him first.

And then they were both falling, the glider snapping away from her in the first blast of the incoming squall.

Natquik pulled her into his arms, fighting to see past her hair as he clutched her to his chest. She in turn fought to get away from him, which he didn't understand but didn't have time to consider. The ground was swiftly approaching, too fast for his frantic mind to figure a way out.

Somehow, Miyo managed to twist in his embrace within the last few seconds, now with her back to him. And as the snow rushed up to meet them, she bended a blast of air into the ground to halt their descent. It slowed them, but didn't stop them. Yet now that he recognized what Miyo was trying to do, Natquik quickly did the same; he threw an arm out in front of her, bending into the snow.

They plunged into the ground just as the storm hit land. Plowing deep into the ice, Natquik immediately lost his sight, and Miyo's powerful grip on his neck was the only thing that kept her from being torn from his arms. He was barely aware of how hard she clung to him; he couldn't do anything but hold her close with one hand and bend with the other.

Above them, the storm savaged the bay.

**XxXxXxXxX**

Startled at the abrupt disappearance of Kwandek, Hikoshu slid into a firebending stance, one fist tight near his shoulder, the fingers of his other hand splayed but loose. At any moment, he anticipated a sudden jolt through his head—the feeling of being pulled from the world as he was returned to his physical body.

Yet nothing happened. Anxiously, he turned in a slow circle with arms at ready, though his bending was useless here. Behind him, the whispers filled the trees, still a low, terrified hum that slipped through the bone-like branches. A chorus of confusion and fear seeping from the woods.

The downy tundra was just as empty as it'd been when he first arrived. The only thing that may have changed was the breeze carrying the feather-snow, which seemed to swirl with a little more urgency. Swallowing, Hikoshu dropped his stance and looked back to the woods.

An Air Nomad—or what Hikoshu immediately assumed was an Air Nomad—stood before him. The man was bare-cheeked and bald, the shape of an arrow outlined in deep brown on his forehead. Gray eyes were sunken in a creviced face, yet Hikoshu had the sense that he looked decades older than he actually was. His outfit was a patchwork of blue and orange—a combination of wide sashes wrapped loosely around his bony arms and shoulders, seeming as if he wore the ocean sunset itself. Underneath it all was a simple brown sack-cloth which hung to his knees. In one hand, he grasped a roughshod staff.

Hikoshu wasn't surprised. But he was most definitely at a loss for words. The stranger, however, didn't seem to want to talk; when he spoke, he didn't even sound like he was addressing Hikoshu, his voice distant as if he were recounting a story. "Its people called it _auyuittuq_—the land that never melts. We simply called them the Water Tribe. No matter that they were more than one tribe. No matter that they had little interest in relating to the rest of the world. I tried for years to bring the four nations together, but sometimes…harmony is best achieved by never meeting in the first place."

Suddenly, the stranger burst into a flurry of flakes, which then floated a foot away. There, they spun in a new whirlwind, eventually solidifying into a sturdy, hard-jawed man with one blue eye. The other was lost in a hideous scar that cut a jagged path from his left ear to his right collarbone, the skin pulled taut where it had healed poorly. He wore gray furs for robes, a jawless polar-wolf's head sewn across the front, and he had no coat. Instead, his single, muscular arm was naked. The left limb ended in a stump.

"The world never'd have known what happened in the land of winter." The man's accent was so heavy that it took Hikoshu a moment to realize he wasn't speaking in the Water Tribe tongue. "They knew none about the growing pains of an emerging civilization, or the wars we were fighting over the oasis. To them, we were one people. To us, we were twenty."

Again, he disappeared, and again, the flakes dashed away. Hikoshu quickly turned to follow them, where they reformed as another man with gray-speckled hair, his thin frame wreathed in greens and browns of a foreign style, his gaunt face distressed. "The infighting was so _violent_. Their aggression eventually spilled into the Continent, and I couldn't stop them! So I've done the only thing I can do. The other land is the same in every respect, but it's on the opposite side of the world." He shook his head, defeated. "Hereafter, there should be two Water Tribes—North and South."

The man dissolved, the flakes moved. A dark-skinned woman—tall, thin, with eyes of deep amber and her black hair in a ponytail—now stood before him. She wore nothing red; in fact, she wore barely anything at all, a mantle of gold over her breasts, loose brown trousers interweaved with a straw skirt covering her legs. The rest of her was exposed, gold circlets around her arms and heavy hoops in her ears.

"It seemed to work well at first. There was still fighting, but by separating themselves, they could share the finite resources of the poles more peacefully. Wars became skirmishes. The North began incorporating trade, and the South retained its heritage. But then the tribesmen started to die…"

Now the line of Avatars transformed so quickly that Hikoshu had to keep moving or he would've lost track of them. Another Air Nomad appeared, female this time. "A few, here, there, all such strange deaths. The Water Tribes were panicking."

"I would search for the source, but just as quickly as the murders began, they ended." The Water Tribe Avatar had barely dissolved before the flakes formed a man of the Earth Kingdom.

"Three years of peace, and another four people would die. The Water Tribes even had a name for it. _Aki_—"

He melted before he finished the word, and a second Fire Nation woman—now dressed in red, her face painted with flames—continued for him. "I sought out the spirit on the Winter Solstice, to stop it once and for all. It was there that…" She hesitated, visibly shuddering as her white-shaded eyelids fell closed. "I walked among the forest of the faceless."

"It became a cautionary tale among the Water Tribes—"

"A legend—"

"A curse—"

"They found they could control it." It was a Fire Nation man now, and Hikoshu jerked his head toward him. He'd turned in a circle nearly five times by then, the world beyond the strangers' shoulders an indistinct white. "They revived the monster, and fed on its rage."

"Stop," Hikoshu muttered, his head spinning. The Avatars didn't seem to hear. Around him—behind him—the whispers became a fevered hiss, almost a scream.

"But no one could control her. They didn't even know what she was. The deaths increased, the faceless swelled—"

"They wrote her story on a scroll, and hid it in the library—"

"Stop," he repeated more forcefully, grabbing his eyes. Past his fingers, the parade of Avatars continued, and though he could no longer see them, his body automatically followed them in their unending circle.

"She hides in the lake—"

"She dies in the lake—"

"He gave her the shore—"

"She gave him the world—"

Unable to stay on his feet, Hikoshu collapsed to one knee. Around him, the voices of the Avatars droned, until they were practically unintelligible from the frantic, furious whispers.

"They wait for each other, as they devour without ever being full."

"She consumes the flesh, and he consumes the soul."

"But I separated them. He to rot in a sky made of earth. She to bloat in a grave of water. There, they will find their ends. As it should be…"

"Should be…"

"Should have been."

There was silence.

Hikoshu remained kneeling in the snow, one hand still over his eyes as he listened to the faint brush of feather-snow on the silk of his robes. The whispers had stopped, too, and part of him thought that if he opened his eyes, he might find himself somewhere else in the Spirit World.

But when he dropped his hand away and climbed to his feet, the tundra still surrounded him. Much to his relief, the Avatars were gone—excepting one. Kwandek had reappeared, his hands shoved into the pocket sewn to the front of his coat. He wore a sad, almost guilty, frown.

"What was that?" Hikoshu was surprised at how shaky his voice sounded. He hadn't realized how much the experience had unnerved him.

Kwandek shrugged, his neck disappearing briefly in his coat as his shoulders rose. "What you wanted."

"How was that what I wanted?"

"Well, what can you expect? You kept asking questions you don't have the answers to." Kwandek sighed and pulled at his ear in unexpressed impatience. "I can't give you any information because I have none to give. On the other hand, a number of our past lives apparently do. But like I said, whatever this thing is, it's causing a serious disruption here in the Spirit World. And I think you just got broadsided by it."

That was an understatement. Having two dozen spirits bombard him at once was a far rougher experience than any ship he'd ever been on. "At one point, it sounded like they were talking about two spirits."

Again, Kwandek shrugged. "From what I gathered, your spirit was born from the clan wars nearly ten thousand years ago. The other spirit…" He trailed off, though Hikoshu could finish for him. Something one of the Avatars had said had already given him an idea of who the other spirit was.

"What is the forest of the faceless?"

"It's a place where Koh once dwelt." Kwandek's voice dropped to a solemn, disquieting murmur. "And where his victims remain."

The silence that followed was eerie. Even more eerie than when he first heard the whispers, or when the Avatars stopped speaking. It was as if mentioning Koh's name had conjured the creature's presence, bringing its attention to their meeting. Hikoshu's skin crawled and his stomach twisted in knots, though he couldn't say if it was simply from the memory of his last encounter with the spirit, or if it really was from being watched.

But before Hikoshu could speak, Kwandek looked up at the sky, his grim expression changing to one of child-like curiosity. "It's time for you to go."

"I still have questions, though." A million questions, now: more than he came there with. "They mentioned a scroll—they said it's hidden in a library."

"There are only two libraries it could be, but I don't know which. One is in the Chief's Household in the North. The other is the Great Library, in the Si Wong Desert." Kwandek never looked away from the sky. "There's a storm coming."

"What kind of storm?" Hikoshu grew uneasy at the tone of his voice. But when Kwandek turned toward him, he had the same blank expression people usually wore when Hikoshu asked a stupid question.

"What…? A _storm_-storm. You need to go. Be prepared to bend for you life when you wake up."

"Wait, what does that mean?"

Kwandek never answered the question. Hikoshu choked as he was jerked off of the ground, something ripping through his chest. And then he was flying through a void, neither in the mortal world nor in the spirit, neither alive nor dead.

Then everything was dark.

And _cold_.

And hard to breathe.

Immediately, he tried to sit up, realizing he was on his back. But a large weight rested on his chest, pressing the air out of his lungs, and his eyes stung, making it hard to tell if they were opened or closed.

His disorientation was severe enough that for several moments, he struggled blindly, unaware that he couldn't even move. Finally, though, his senses returned, and upon recognizing that snow held him down, Hikoshu worked his hands loose in order to bend.

The snow exploded as it flew off of him, exposing him to air made gray with frenetic flakes. He took several ragged breaths as he pushed himself up, only to be leveled again by a gust of wind that tore at the bay. Bending a blast of air to combat the gales, Hikoshu sat up once again to peer weakly at his surroundings.

Nothing but a dark gray. Even the totems were now invisible, the columns and the water alike swallowed in the fierce storm that dumped snow on the bay. Shivering, he crawled out of the snow drift he'd been buried in. Yet as soon as he stopped bending, the wind nearly knocked him over again. There wasn't any way he could walk in this storm. Not in this condition.

Collapsing to his knees, Hikoshu stuck numb fingers into the snow and bended ice walls out of the ground. The four slabs came to a point high above his head, forming a small shelter. Not enough room to stand, but solid enough at least to hold back the furious winds and stinging snow. Which was what he needed while he tried to get warm, especially since he couldn't firebend. His teeth chattering hard enough to bite his tongue, Hikoshu forced himself to ignore the pain in his knuckles as he scooped snow into his palms. Then, carefully, he bended the snow into water, its surface rippling oddly as it enveloped his fingers. He didn't heal, though; Hikoshu merely warmed the water up, creating a pair of unusual, heated gloves.

He had to concentrate in order to keep the heat bath at the right temperature; however, his patience paid off, as his fingers began to hurt inside the morphing water. They were changing from a death-like white to a pinker hue—a good sign that he wouldn't lose any of them to frostbite. With more time, his body felt warmer, too, and he imagined he could firebend if he could just focus.

Eventually Hikoshu flicked his hands dry and, removing his boots, turned his attention to his feet. The skin was also white and bloodless, the joints stiff, but this time, Hikoshu used firebending to warm them up. As circulation returned to his legs, he began to unfreeze other vulnerable body parts. Finally, as his anxiety settled and his mind cleared, Hikoshu turned his thoughts to Miyo and Natquik. Once his strength improved, he could possibly search the storm with his bending, but the likelihood of him finding anything in the obscurity of heavy snowfall and encroaching night was slim. In fact, he ran a better chance of getting himself into more trouble than he already was in.

He would have to wait, then, for morning or for whenever the storm weakened.

Hikoshu had managed to warm up the majority of his body when he heard footsteps outside. He quickly abandoned his fire in order to listen more closely, which allowed him to hear the distant call of his name, muffled though it was by the walls. Someone was definitely calling for him, however, and as relief flooded him, Hikoshu realized how worried he'd really been. Tugging on his boots, he offered a quick prayer of thanks to the spirits for calming the storm and keeping his friends safe.

But when Hikoshu bended down one wall and pushed away the accumulated snow, all he could see was darkness. Night had descended and the storm was still going strong, the winds throwing sheets of snow against his shelter. Gazing out into the dark, he produced a flame that revealed only more snow.

"Natquik! Where are you?"

The gale was deafening, but it didn't hide the footsteps. He could still hear them, somewhere just outside the orange ring of his fire.

Yet no one approached.

"Hikoshu."

The word was whispered so softly that it could have been a trick of the wind. But the wind wasn't in the habit of saying men's names. Nor repeating them. "Hikoshu."

"Who's there?" he uttered.

No answer. Whoever it was, the person stayed outside the light, the sound of his steps fading and growing stronger with each gust of wind. Something icy clutched Hikoshu's chest, and his limbs went cold all over again. Suddenly, he knew—no matter what that voice whispered—he better not leave the shelter.

Perhaps the brave thing to do would have been to go out into the night, confront the murdering spirit, and fight it now. But just as he was sure that the spirit he needed to fight was taunting him from the darkness, Hikoshu was also sure he had no chance of success. Out there, the spirit knew exactly what it was doing. Hikoshu, on the other hand, would be blind, exhausted, and badly weakened.

That was what he told himself, at least. There was, however, a part of him that would not go out there, not because of strategy, not because of instinctive knowledge—but because he was terrified of what he would find. Or, rather, what would find him.

Slowly, holding up the fire as if it would protect him, Hikoshu backed into the ice shelter and bended the wall into place. It did nothing to hinder the sound of those maddening footsteps, nor the whisper of his name on the wind that moaned through the cracks.

His chest burned, and uncomfortable, Hikoshu fumbled under his coat for the source of the pain. He pulled out the talisman that Kinu had given him, the little dhole looking yellowed in his firelight.

The footsteps stopped after that, the voice no longer calling for him.

Huddled by the small flame in his palm, Hikoshu didn't sleep for quite a while. He wasn't sure how long he stayed awake, if he made it to morning or not. Eventually, though, the exhaustion of the Spirit World visit and of his continuous firebending got to him, overpowering even the nightmares that crept at the edges of his mind.

He entered a dark place of ice pillars and hidden whispers.

**XxXxXxXxX**

"Natquik!" Miyo had twisted around before impact, such that her back was now against the ice and her fists jabbed into his chest. But the cramped space wouldn't allow him to lift his weight off of her, and the dim light made it difficult to see her face. "What did you do?"

"Saved your life," he grunted, silently wishing she'd stop jerking her knees. As his eyes adjusted, the faint light from the hole he'd punched through the snow filtered down into the tunnel, and he could almost make out the contours of her head. But she was too close to see anything other than her eyes. "What were you thinking, taking off like that?"

"We have to save Hikoshu." She pushed at him like that could make him move any better. "He's stuck out there!"

"Miyo, he's a waterbender. You're not." His hands were pinned to either side of her by the tunnel, making it impossible for him to stop her shoving. So grimacing, Natquik had to bear it. "What would you have done if you hadn't reached him in time?"

"Natquik, get us out of here." Obviously, she wasn't listening anymore. Not that she'd been listening in the first place. "If we look for him now, we still might find him."

"Yeah, about that." He'd managed to bend the snow out of their way as they plunged into the ground, which had prevented them from colliding with anything hard. But it also meant the hole he'd created wasn't very big, and had become progressively smaller the deeper they went. "I can't move my arms."

"What?"

"I can't really bend without my arms."

Now, that _really_ made her squirm, her body wriggling under his in a way that he might've actually enjoyed had claustrophobia not been setting in. "Natquik, get us out. I can't breathe!"

"Stop it, settle down! Maybe I can make the hole bigger, hold on."

It was hard to bend packed ice, which was why the hole had grown smaller the deeper they'd gone. At this particular depth, the ice was extremely compressed and less bendable—not the most favorable conditions for someone with such limited range of motion. It also required half-blind, complex bending, and his strengths certainly weren't in that area. So all Natquik succeeded in doing was bending some of the ice loose and forcing it back up the way they'd come, possibly blocking off the tunnel in the process.

During that time, Miyo was panicking under him, her chest heaving against his as she struggled to rein in her terror. She was going to pass out at that rate, and he had to stop at one point to tell her to calm down.

"There's plenty of air. But you have to take normal breaths. Slow, normal breaths."

"You're crushing me!"

"I know, I'm sorry! Just try to stay calm, just a little bit longer."

By the time he'd widened the hole enough to shift his weight off of her, her breathing had returned to a somewhat regular pace. And for a moment, Natquik worried that she'd fainted during the wait. But when he pushed his weight onto his left arm and off of her, she took a deep, shuddering breath and grabbed her chest.

"You alright?" he whispered, his mouth next to her ear. She nodded, which he couldn't really see with the last of the daylight gone, but he felt her hair against his cheek.

"Can you get us out now?" she murmured, and Natquik stretched the cramping fingers of his now free right hand.

"Not immediately, no. But I'm working on it."

"Then can I at least get off my back? I'm hurting."

She'd been stuck against the ice for quite a while, he realized, and even airbender robes weren't suited for that long of an exposure. Blindly, he pulled on her arm, motioning for her to turn.

"Try to get yourself on top of me. Make sure you're not touching any snow."

With some awkward fumbling, she worked her way onto his chest, her head just below his jaw, her knees planted to either side of his thighs. Now Natquik definitely wasn't in the best position to bend, but Miyo couldn't have stayed much longer in that position. Not without passing out for real. The ice was now in contact with his back, but fortunately his coat protected him from most of the cold; he only wished that he'd pulled up his hood before they'd switched places.

"Do you think you can airbend us out?" he asked as Miyo used the advantage of her smaller body to push herself off of him a slight distance.

"I might, but it could easily suffocate us in this small of a space." Natquik saw the silhouette of her head turn from side to side in examination; she was a lot calmer now that she had some freedom to move. "Maybe if…" Suddenly, she cut off with an involuntary shiver—one that practically rattled him, too.

"Just stop." Much to her obvious surprise, Natquik pulled her down onto his chest. With a low yelp of indignation, Miyo tried to push away. "I said stop!" Naturally she didn't, fighting him as he planted his palms flat against her back.

"Natquik, don't!"

"I'm just bending the water out of your clothes," he said hurriedly, and Miyo seemed to relax at this explanation, her struggles ceasing. "I figure if you're freezing to death, you can't rescue us." The water had nowhere to go but down, and as he pulled it out of her robes, it trickled into his sleeves. At least it was warm from her body heat.

"I'm sorry," she said softly, resting her head under his chin. "I just thought…"

"What? Thought I was taking advantage of you?" Her silence spoke volumes. "Seriously? How little do you trust me?"

"Well, what else can I think?" she retorted, shivering hard enough that her head jammed into his jaw. "You always seem to see the opportunities when it comes to women."

"But not when I'm stuck in a frozen tunnel of doom with them."

"Reminding me,"—her voice turned sarcastic—"have I thanked you for saving us yet?"

"I'm happy to let you back on the bottom, if you want."

"Well, the top isn't much warmer. I'm colder than I was before."

"That's because I pulled the water out of your clothes. It'll take some time to warm up."

There was a long pause, filled with the sound of Miyo's stuttered breaths. "Natquik," she whispered, her words half-muffled through her lips, "what about Hikoshu? Is he alright?"

He didn't know. There was no way he could know. How strong was Hikoshu's survival instinct in the face of disaster? Was he in the Avatar State right now, or did the Spirit World prevent him from protecting himself? Above them, all Natquik could hear were the whistles and roars of winds that pounded the bay. Sounds which told him that, no matter what condition Hikoshu was in, they were only slightly better off. Sounds that told him they couldn't go looking for their friend any time soon.

But Miyo didn't need to know the worry that plagued him, when she was in no position to help. It'd either drive her to do something crazy, or make her despair even more. So Natquik infused his voice with all of the hope and certainty he wasn't feeling. "Hikoshu can protect himself from the storm. Once it hit the bay, he likely woke up and bended a shelter. In fact, he's probably doing better than we are."

"Do you really believe that?"

"I don't know...but _we're_ safe, aren't we? And Hikoshu's the Avatar. He's got...Avatar powers and things. He wouldn't be hurt that easily." It seemed to satisfy her, and even Natquik took some courage from his own faked assurance.

They fell quiet after that, Miyo's shivers slowing over time. Natquik, on the other hand, grew increasingly chiller the longer he lay against the ice, and repeatedly, he regretted not pulling up his hood. But at least he had Miyo as a source of warmth, and after a while, he drew his arms around her again.

"My clothes are dry," she muttered, surprising him. Natquik had thought she'd fallen asleep in the interim, so quiet and steady were her breaths.

"I just had to move my arms," he lied, pulling them back to his sides.

Miyo surprised him again, murmuring, "Don't." In response, he hesitated, not really sure if he'd heard her right.

"You need to keep your arms warm," she continued. "And it makes me warmer, too."

"Sure you trust me not to molest you?"

"I'll take my chances." He could hear the grin in her words. "Also, I'll break your nose if you try anything."

"Have I told you how much I admire your pacifism?" Natquik folded his arms over her again, and she gave a soft hmph, curling her fingers into the fur of his coat. They didn't speak anymore, nor did they really need to; this time, the silence was profoundly…comfortable.

There was no reason for it to be comfortable. Natquik had never been afraid of small spaces, but that was because he'd never been stuck in one. Now, though, he was trapped in the dark, unable to move, unable to bend—powerless and insecure. At the very least, he should've been wide awake with the fear of what would happen if they couldn't get out. Not to mention the fear that, if they did get out, what they would find of Hikoshu on the surface.

Yet, despite all of that, he was still indescribably content. There was something about having Miyo with him that kept his thoughts from going to dark places, and there was something about holding her that made him feel a lot less uneasy.

Something that made him feel comfortable. More comfortable than he'd been in a long time. Comfortable enough, in fact, that long after he realized Miyo had drifted off, Natquik fell asleep himself.

And his dreams were, for once, almost pleasant.

* * *

**A/N: **again, this chapter is unbeta'd, so _any _reviews or critiques are highly welcomed. You all are my beta audience, and I thrive on feedback. There are a couple of intentional mistakes: one of the Water Tribe Avatars has some messed-up grammar (the scarred guy). That grammar was screwed up on purpose, because it's hard to imply "Dude who does not speak our language" without getting some of the grammar wrong. In retrospect, though, it just comes off as me not reviewing carefully, so I'll probably fix it.


	12. Ch 11: Avalanche

**Chapter 11 - Avalanche**

* * *

Hikoshu awoke to a cold, dark world. His shoulder hurt where, during the night, he had slid down the wall to come to a rest on it, the cold seeping through his coat even if the snow hadn't. All of his joints were stiff as he shifted onto his back, and there wasn't enough room to stretch his legs. Above him, light streamed from the cracks of his rough-shod ice hut, giving a dim, blue contrast to the shelter.

Not that there was much to see. Just the solid walls and the snow now packed into ice underneath him. Around his neck, standing out against the gray of his coat, was the little dhole charm, unimpressive in the meager morning light. But it reminded him of the events of the previous evening, of the Spirit World—and of the storm. It was a sobering thought that he was still camped in the center of Rajio Bay, which spurred him into movement. Struggling to his knees, Hikoshu pressed one fist into the palm of his frozen hand and bended a sphere of air.

The shelter—and the snow that half-buried it—easily exploded outward in a wide arc, leaving him seated in a depression in the middle of the totem-marked square. Those columns seemed oddly shorter today, piled under the late evening snow, yet the world itself appeared strangely clear. Whiter. A chilly breeze settled over him, carrying a few flurries, and all around him, the bay held a restful sense of calm. The storm had moved on.

Hikoshu squinted upward, noting how far the sun had climbed in a sky half-concealed by a high, thin blanket of clouds. He'd slept part of the day away, and still, no one had come looking for him. Frowning, he cupped his palm to his mouth and bended the air as he shouted across the bay. His voice echoed on the distant snow ridge, but nobody answered.

He got up to search. Even though the white was uninterrupted, the snow so flat that it could hide nothing, Hikoshu still needed to look. Desperation hadn't yet set in—just a growing concern that something was wrong. They'd probably built a shelter on the other side of the ridge. They may have taken Tehsa to a safer location to wait out the storm. There were a million options, none of which were serious. Just wrong.

Even when he climbed, gasping, to the top of the ridge and looked over the other side to find more sprawling snow, Hikoshu was undeterred. A little dizzy—alright, a lot dizzy—but he was still convinced everything was fine. Stumbling to his hands and knees, he let his eyes stop swimming before he crawled back to the bayside and slid down the slope.

Then he walked along the bottom of the ridge, shouting periodically and listening for any response. The top snow was loose and thick, and his first steps out of the destroyed shelter had resulted in him sinking up to his knees. Now he walked with wide, slow steps, freezing the ground under him so that he wouldn't fall through.

Nearly an hour of searching and shouting passed before he heard a sound. Pausing to lean heavily on his thighs, he peered, half-blind, at the expanse of ridge ahead of him. There, possibly a trick of his eyes, he thought he could see something pushing out of the snow. With a heavy, fogging breath of both joy and exhaustion, he started forward, using airbending to move more quickly.

Something _was_ trying to get out, the bank that covered the entrance jerking under the push of whoever was inside. Relief flooded him as he shifted into a bending stance, and with one forceful heave, he threw the entire wall of snow away.

Tehsa's head immediately emerged from the rain of falling ice chunks. The bison gave a mournful groan as she tried to climb out of the cave, and she nudged the snow drift that still covered the floor. He climbed over it to embrace her nose, grateful enough to see another living creature that he forgot his general apprehension of things larger than him. Tehsa, who hadn't seemed all that fond of him either, groaned again and nuzzled his hands, her teary brown eyes staring down at him in misery.

"Are you all right, Tehsa?" Another deep rumble, and she shook her shaggy head, her ears flicking as Hikoshu took a precautionary step back. "I'll get you out." He turned to bend a flatter path so that she could walk, and she nearly pushed him out of the way in her lumbering escape.

As the bison crawled from the cave, Hikoshu could see her fur was a mess, but she didn't look hurt. Just really tired, as she immediately collapsed outside of the cave, her large gray belly shaking the ground as she landed. Much to Hikoshu's dismay, she was still wearing her saddle, and when he peered inside of it, the bottom was empty except for their personal belongings. Only Miyo's staff was gone.

"Did Natquik make this cave?" he asked as he returned to the ground, and Tehsa gave an unhelpful grunt. Working past her wide, flat tail, he examined the interior of the cave to find the walls smooth, obviously bended. So Natquik had made Tehsa a shelter and left with Miyo. How long ago was that? Only Tehsa would know, but he didn't imagine he'd get much information from her. At least he knew it had to be before the storm, as the entrance was completely sealed. So they'd been in the elements for nearly a day.

Hikoshu wasn't going to get worried. Not yet. If they weren't with Tehsa, then they had to be close by. He simply had to keep searching.

"Do you want to come with me, or stay here?" he asked, rubbing the bison above one eye as he circled back to its nose. Tehsa looked up at him with a weary, half-lidded gaze and rumbled a response he couldn't interpret. But she didn't stand, either, so he took that as a 'no.' "Well, then, can you wear your saddle a little longer? I'd take it off, but I'd probably break something." Another apathetic growl. "I'm going to find Miyo, then. Wait here until I get back." She lifted her head at that, a large pink tongue darting out to lick him, and he barely dodged the attack. "No! No need for thanks. I'm…I'm good." He couldn't tell if she was insulted, but she rested in the snow again, and he turned back toward the ridge in order to retrace his steps.

There was a _lot_ of ground to cover. Especially if they were buried like Tehsa was. Hikoshu figured they would have built another shelter in the ridge if they had been caught in the storm, and so he stuck to the tall bank, his eyes scanning for any more movement as he occasionally called out their names.

There was no response or movement. But there was something in the snow. Given how hard he was squinting, and how painful the snow had become to look at, Hikoshu was surprised he even saw it: nearly ten paces away, a tiny, dark break in the white. Stumbling toward it, and almost falling in to his waist as he forgot to bend some solid ground, he cut a path to the small lump of brown, no bigger than his palm.

As he dropped to his knees beside it, Hikoshu realized that the lump was actually the tip of meticulously crafted wood. It looked so familiar that, when he carefully scooped the snow away from it, his stomach sank in equal measures with every inch he uncovered.

The wood was Miyo's staff. Worse, it was Miyo's glider, the frame of the orange silk sails open but amazingly unbroken in the storm. Yanking it free, Hikoshu settled back in the snow and set it across his knees to examine it for any evidence—any sign of why it was here and why Miyo wasn't.

Unless, of course, she was.

That was when the concern turned to terror. She could be buried anywhere, lost in the snow drift. He wouldn't be able to tell, nor would he be able to help her. Frantic, he dug with his fingers into the snow neighboring the staff's resting place, though it became quickly apparent he wouldn't find her that way.

Standing up, Hikoshu prepared to bend away the entire ridge. Take the whole thing down and sort the mess later. But common sense intervened, and he realized the resultant avalanche would bury both him and Tehsa, even at that distance. So instead, he made a slicing motion with his flattened palm toward the ridge, dropping smoothly on his left leg at the same time, the right one stretched straight in front of him. In response, the towering snow ridge cracked loudly, the sound echoing ominously off the bay. With a final, gliding sweep of his other hand past his hip, Hikoshu caused a wide swath of the bottom ridge to suddenly crumple, its top surface sloughing off to tumble toward the ocean.

As one huge sheet, it descended on him, shaking the ground as it moved. He quickly held both hands against the onslaught, his overlapping palms toward the snow, and bent at his knees as he stepped back to snap one arm outward. Just yards from him, the menacing avalanche separated and spun, a white cloud shooting upward as it twisted in a wide arc around him. When the snow eventually settled, the air wet with falling flakes, it now encircled him in a miniature version of the drift—a rounded fort that held him in the center. Just over its daunting wall, Hikoshu could barely see blue sky and the top of the disturbed ridge.

There was no way he was going to find Miyo in this. As terror transformed into desperation, he spun in a circle, blowing away layer after layer of the drift surrounding him with wide sweeps of his hands. It revealed nothing, merely throwing the snow back into the air and obscuring the world once more.

Hikoshu felt helpless. If she was in this drift, then he might find her this way. But if she wasn't, it would take him hours to know that for certain. He might not even be near where she was. Ignoring the fact that if she was buried—had been buried—as long as that glider had been, she would be dead by now, despite his best efforts to locate her.

It wasn't going to work. He wasn't going to find her alive.

The helplessness built into frustration as Hikoshu fell to his knees and searched the ridge surface in futility. So much snow. They could be anywhere. He couldn't bend it all away.

With a cry fueled by impotent rage, he punched his fists into the ground. Immediately, the remnants of the massive drift wall sprung into the air, the snow vaporizing under the force of his anger, and the ground quaked below him. Still not enough, he thought, as the breeze carried away the tiny flakes, showering him in the spray. Still not enough.

Hikoshu expected a true avalanche at that point—probably wouldn't have cared if there was one. If he had really thought it would help, he would have torn that entire bay apart. But he had no idea where he was looking, or if he was even looking in the right place. So he sat quietly amongst the pile of disturbed snow, his chest heaving as he clutched Miyo's open glider.

Hikoshu wasn't really sure how long he stayed there, unmoving. Part of him even wondered if maybe he had entered the Avatar State without realizing it, though he supposed if he had, the bay would have been melted into the ocean. When he finally roused himself from the stupor that he'd fallen into, it wasn't because of the cold. Nor was it because he, in another state, had destroyed the entire bay.

Instead, he thought he heard a noise. Dim under the soft moaning of the wind, but distinctly there—a deep, booming rhythm that vibrated the ground beneath him and shook the powdery snow. It came in pauses and starts, sometimes swallowed by the bay, sometimes augmented by the wind. Though it wasn't any more human than the footsteps of the previous night, it wasn't nearly as foreboding either, and despite the despair that clung to him, Hikoshu felt a lingering flicker of hope.

"Miyo," he uttered, even as he argued that it couldn't be her. Sticking his hand in the snow, he reached out with his mind to follow the source of the vibrations—a trick taught to him by Mayami. Though not as effective as it would've been in water, the technique allowed him to feel the direction of the sound through his bending, and he realized with a small shock of surprise that it really was coming from a single source. Using the staff, he pushed himself to his feet and once more surveyed the area. No sign of people, but the sound hadn't yet disappeared. Something was out there, even if he couldn't see it. Tripping over the newly formed drifts, Hikoshu started to search once more.

**xxXxxxXxxXxxxXxx**

Miyo awoke to light. Something was under her, soft and warm like a bison. In fact, it was very much like a bison, as it moved rhythmically with steady breaths. But it was also lumpy, very unlike a bison, and it encircled her, too, in a warm embrace.

That was her first reminder of the situation they were in. The second reminder came as she stretched her arms to either side and immediately encountered ice. Her eyes flying open, she lifted her head to spy the fur trim of Natquik's Shaman coat. Sunlight must have filtered through the hole behind them, because she could now see the tunnel as well, the walls perfectly smooth and so close that she felt panic rising in her chest again.

"Natquik," she whispered, and gave the coat under her a hard jerk. "Natquik, wake up." He didn't. "Natquik?"

Terror now swamped the panic, and Miyo pulled herself up higher along his body to see his face. He was still alive, but his skin looked frightfully washed-out, dark circles around his eyes. Grabbing his cheeks in both palms, she shook his head from side to side. "Natquik!"

"Whuh?" he mumbled, pulling his face from her hands as he blinked open red eyes. They took a moment to focus, in which time he reached up to rub them, and smashed his hands against the icy ceiling. Hissing, he lifted his head to peer at her, the memory of their situation slowly returning to him, too.

"Oh, thank the spirits." She sighed, letting her shoulders relax against his chest. "I thought…" She didn't know what she'd thought. That maybe he was slipping away from her. "Thought maybe you'd gotten cold," she said instead.

"Ow, no." He laid his head back down, wincing as he gritted his teeth. "Well, a little." He planted his arms to either side of him, though the tunnel was so narrow that he found little purchase, and shifted underneath her.

"Are you hurt?"

"Just feel like I've been sleeping with a rock on me all night."

"Oh, I'm sorry. Next time you get us stuck in a hole, I'll be sure to lose some weight first."

He gave a wry grin at her indignation. "There's that defensiveness I've come to love." Cracking an eye, he gazed down at her, then craned his neck as much as he could in order to look around her. "Seems like the storm's let up."

"Time to get out of here and find Hikoshu?"

"Time to get you off me."

"Don't pretend you didn't enjoy it," she murmured, trying to lift herself off of him. There was enough room by his legs to brace her knees, but it didn't give her a lot of leverage. The resultant shuffling just made him grimace harder.

"May have enjoyed it more with my hood up. My head's been numb since last night."

"Well, why didn't you just tell me that?" She snaked her arms above his shoulders in order to yank the hood loose from where he was laying on it. Because he couldn't move to loosen the coat, she was forced to use his chest as a fulcrum.

"Elbows! Watch your elbows." Miyo ignored him, and a moment later, the fabric finally came out from under his back. With a sigh, she worked it over his head and pulled it tight around his ears, such that his eyes were nearly lost under the white fur trim.

"Better?"

"Oh, yeah. Now I'm definitely enjoying this."

She gave a half-hearted laugh and brushed the hood out of his eyes, which glowed a brilliant blue despite the dim light. Now he didn't look so pale, though the dark, bruised color of his eyelids still lingered. Despite that, Natquik wore the same warm, easy-going expression he had even at the toughest moments, his smile crooked toward a typical grin.

"So what's the plan?" she asked, resting her hands on his shoulders.

"Well, I thought we'd wait a little longer. Not many opportunities I get to hold a beautiful woman, after all."

"Natquik, really, stop being such a tease..." But he wasn't teasing. Or at least she didn't think he was. That glint of humor was surprisingly lacking in his eyes, and he'd pulled his arms around her again. Though they had been pressed against each other all night, Miyo now became acutely aware of just how small that distance really was. She could feel his breath flutter her eyelashes—could touch her lips to his jaw with just the tiniest of movements.

A stomach-flipping moment passed, when her heart hammered hard enough that she knew he felt it even through his coat. The intensity of the gaze they shared chased all other thoughts away, except the thought of what the next moment would hold. Miyo saw the same question reflected in his eyes, and she heard his breath catch.

The ground had felt like it was shaking to her, so hard did her heart beat. But suddenly, it quaked for real. They were both rattled in the tunnel as a deep roar reverberated through the ice, and Natquik clutched her protectively. Burying her head next to his, she covered both of them with her arms, prepared for the tunnel to cave in.

Several, awful seconds passed before the trembling subsided, and Miyo looked up, amazed that the tunnel had held. She'd been convinced that it was coming down on them, but the walls had stilled, their little prison unchanged.

"What was that?" she said in a hushed whisper, as if speaking in a normal voice might set it off again.

"I don't know," Natquik's voice was also low, "but I think we better go."

She grunted in agreement and began an awkward crawl down his body. Unable to find traction on the ice, she used his coat instead, literally pushing herself backwards through the tunnel. But even before the tunnel began its steep slope to the surface, she hit something hard with her feet, her progress stopped.

"Natquik, something's in the way."

He looked as best he could, pushing her head to the side with one hand.

"It's the ice I bent free last night. It's blocking part of the hole. You'll have to climb over it."

"I don't think I can." She searched the barrier blindly with the toes of her thin cotton boot, the wooden sole sliding along the ice. But when she found its edge and explored further past it, she encountered yet another obstacle. "Maybe just…" Wriggling further down, she held tight to his waist and kicked at the barrier, adding a little airbending behind it.

The second barrier gave, but oddly didn't clear. The airbending, however, created a short vacuum that drew a gasp from Natquik.

"I don't think it worked," she muttered, dropping her head into his lap with a weak sigh. He suddenly sucked in a breath, his hands grasping her head to hold it up.

"Careful!"

"Sorry!" she hissed, lifting her head again. "Can you see what I'm hitting?"

"Feel it, more than anything," he said dryly. At her flat expression, he added, "Sorry, I'm a little distracted. Alright, it's uh…I just see the ice. Looks like your foot's in snow."

"Snow? How…?" The entire tunnel was solid ice, perfectly smooth from Natquik's bending. The only way snow would be in the tunnel was if it had come in from the entrance. And all of a sudden, it made sense. If the storm had dumped a lot of snow, it might have collected at the bend, forming a barrier just past the one that Natquik had formed out of necessity.

"I don't know," Natquik answered. His voice was weary, his gaze directed at the low ceiling as he laid back. "I can't really think about anything with you down there…like that."

She rolled her eyes as she slowly climbed back up his body, trying hard to minimize contact. "We're stuck in here, Hikoshu and Tehsa are lost out there, and you can't even keep your thoughts decent?"

"Honestly, Miyo," he said as she crawled to the level of his chest, "this isn't exactly fun for me. But you do need to stop moving around so much."

"Come up with a plan and maybe I will."

"That's a cruel threat. Alright." He let out a deep, audible sigh. "I might be able to bend those barriers into water, but if I do that, it's going to flow down here. And I don't know how much there is."

"Can't you just bend through the ceiling?" she asked, resting her head on him. Through his coat, she could hear his heart beat steadily, its gentle pulse calming her own.

"Maybe, but it'll take a while. A really long while. I'm not a very good bender." That made her snort.

"What happened to greatest waterbender in the world?"

"I give you ideas and you mock my impotence?"

"I don't know, you don't feel very impotent right now."

He jerked his head up at the quip, nearly hitting it on the ceiling. "Hey, _you_ keep moving around."

Their banter was interrupted as the ground shook again, this time a _lot_ harder. Hard enough to jar Miyo's teeth even as she pressed herself into Natquik, his arms covering her head. Around them, the tunnel roared as if alive, and she could hear something snapping.

"Natquik!" she shouted in surprise as snow smashed into her legs. The cave was coming down on top of them, burying them alive, and she couldn't do anything to stop it. The thought sent waves of unbridled panic through her spine.

Hiding her face in his coat, she tried to hold back a scream—tried to block out the sensation of choking. But her fear held onto her like a vise, crushing her chest until she couldn't breathe. It took Natquik shaking her shoulders to bring her back from her terror, and slowly, she realized that the collapse had stopped.

They were still inside the tunnel.

Gasping, Miyo raised her head, and saw that the tunnel was a lot darker now, Natquik's outline barely visible on the ice.

"You alright?" he said breathlessly above her, and she nodded.

"There's something on my legs." She kicked at it, felt it give slightly. It didn't move, however, and already, she was losing feeling through her robes.

"That snow drift fell through with the shaking." He released her shoulders. "I don't think the tunnel came down."

"We have to get out of here." That invisible vise was still wrapped around her chest, squeezing so hard that it hurt. She'd never been so long without her bending. Even in the worst moments of her life, she had still felt more in control than she did now. "Natquik, we can't die in here!"

"Miyo, stop!" His hands were back on her, holding firmly. "We are going to be fine. Just listen. The shaking, it wasn't in the tunnel. It was outside! It's coming from somewhere else."

"What?"

"Something outside is causing it. Just trust me, I can feel the tunnel and it's solid." There was a long pause, as she tried to get her heart under control. Tried to puzzle through what this now meant. Fortunately, Natquik had regained his composure faster than she had, his mind quickly processing the situation. "It could either be an avalanche. Or a waterbender."

"Hikoshu?" she asked, her heart leaping back into a gallop.

"I don't know, maybe. But I really don't know." Another long silence, filled only with her frantic breaths. "If he's out there. If that was him…"

"Then we should make some kind of noise."

Natquik nodded, the gesture barely visible in the reduced light. "Hold tight to me." Quickly, she hugged his chest as he made a fist and slammed it against the ceiling.

He didn't have much room to get momentum behind the blow, but it vibrated through the tunnel as if he had hit it with a club, a dull rumble echoing up the chamber. The tremor flowed through her, crawling past her spine, her legs, and in response, she shuddered. A moment later, he repeated the action. And after another moment, again.

Miyo squeezed her eyes shut, trying to ignore the small jump in her each time the tunnel shook. Trying to ignore how hot and cold she felt at the same time. Trying to hold onto that small hope that maybe somewhere, Hikoshu could hear.

She counted twenty beats. The longer it went on, the further Natquik waited between each one, such that it seemed to stretch into eternity. Eventually, though, he let his hand fall as he took a deep breath, and she glanced up from his chest.

"Just need a break. My hand's cramping."

"If he was there, he would have heard it by now." Her somber tone apparently surprised him, and he lifted his head to look down at her.

"That's not the cheery optimistic airbender I know. Seriously, don't give up. You might make _me_ feel glum." Then, shaking his other hand out, he switched fists and started pounding again.

This time, Miyo only counted ten beats. But it wasn't exhaustion that stopped him. Even she heard it in the last hit—a change in the timbre of the vibration. Frowning, Natquik slowly lowered his hand, and she glanced around curiously for some change.

"What happened?"

"I don't—"

He was interrupted by a noise. No, a voice. Miyo tried to twist toward the entrance, but she couldn't look far enough. Natquik looked for her, pushing her head out of the way.

"Miyo?" the voice said, and her heart was in her throat as she screamed back, "Hikoshu!"

"Miyo!" It was faint, definitely high above them, and the snow drift that still held her legs blocked almost everything, even sound. But it was Hikoshu, alright. Alive. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine! How're you?"

He only answered with a distant laugh. "Can you get out?"

"I'm fine, too, Hikoshu!" Natquik yelled with some sarcasm; she winced as his voice reverberated painfully on the walls. "And, no, we're a little stuck!"

There was a heavy silence. "This hole is blocked!"

Letting her head fall, Miyo laughed breathlessly, the sound tinged with weary relief. "We know! That's why we're stuck!"

"Listen, I'm going to bend you ou—"

"Stop!" Natquik shouted, jerking his body so fast that he slammed into her jaw and made her bite her tongue. "Hikoshu, don't waterbend!"

"What is it?" she asked, rubbing her tongue against her teeth. Above them, Hikoshu said something muffled but with the same tone.

"The walls are structurally weak!" He clasped the ceiling as if to hold it up, his palms flat against the ice. "Don't bend anything or this whole tunnel might come down!"

"But you said it was all right," she said, dropping her voice to a whisper mid-sentence. He shot her a guilty look as he slowly lowered his arms.

"I did something when I was hitting the ceiling." Suddenly, that cramping vise had a hold of her again. "We have to find another way!"

"Can I just bend the snow blocking the hole?" Hikoshu suggested. "That shouldn't affect the walls."

"Slowly! Bend a little at a time and stop if I tell you to."

Slowly wasn't going to work. They needed to get out quick. Yet what could she do? She was stuck under snow, stuck on top of Natquik, stuck in that one position. Just stuck. So Miyo struggled to keep calm, listening carefully to Hikoshu move the snow, the sound of it crunching and swishing as he bended it free.

Natquik had placed a hand on her shoulder and one on the wall, closely monitoring Hikoshu's progress. Then she realized that if he hadn't panicked yet, then perhaps she shouldn't either. They both had it under control. They would tell her if something went wrong.

She hoped.

Clearing the tunnel was a tedious process, though as the sounds grew closer and nothing else happened, Miyo breathed easier. If Hikoshu could clear out a passage, then they could escape. She wasn't sure how, but she was sure they could. After all, Hikoshu was the Avatar. If anyone was capable of precarious rescue attempts, it was him.

But when he was nearly at the bottom—when he was so close that light filtered through the last screen of snow that held down her legs and her hope was at its highest, Natquik suddenly yelled for him to stop shoveling.

With the sound of the snow now stopped, she could hear what Natquik had felt, terror rising in her again: a deep groan, so low that it was almost inaudible, which vibrated the ice softly under her hand. Looking up at Natquik, Miyo saw his face filled with apprehension as he tried to watch the progress behind her, and she realized that maybe she now had reason to be afraid.

"Hikoshu, you have to move fast now!" he shouted; around them, the groan changed to a knocking.

"I'm going to come down there!" His suggestion was immediately answered by protests from both her and Natquik.

"You'll just kill all three of us!" She was trying so hard to keep calm.

"I can't see the rest of the snow, it's too deep. I'm just as likely to bend the tunnel if I try!"

Her breaths came in ragged gasps now, though Natquik was too busy to talk her down. She felt like she was strangling, as if the air were being slowly sucked out and the walls were already closing in as the knocking shifted back into a groan. An airbender, and she couldn't even breathe. Couldn't even use what little of the element she had. But she also couldn't panic. Slow breaths. Slow, deep breaths.

And it was her breath that gave her sudden focus. Quickly, she yanked on Natquik's coat to get his attention. "You said you can melt it."

"Which is liable to destabilize the tunnel and drown us both," he answered without looking at her, his hands sliding along the wall. "Maybe I can bend supports." There wasn't enough room for that.

"Listen," Miyo said hurriedly, still pulling on his coat. "Melt the ice. Get the barrier out of the way. I can bend us both out if the tunnel is cleared."

"You would have to bend us out _quick_," he said doubtfully, still searching for a way to solidify the wall. "Seconds at most."

"I can do it."

"Natquik! What do you want me to do?" Hikoshu shouted. Natquik finally broke from his preoccupation, considering Miyo at length in the dim tunnel. She was still panicking, but she struggled for a resolute expression. They didn't have much time.

Then, speaking over the ever-louder groan of the ice, he said, "Just wait! Miyo has an idea!" He lowered his voice for her. "Are you sure you can do it?"

"Please hurry."

He nodded, then scooted himself away from the end of the tunnel, his feet moving toward the barrier. Miyo tried to shift her weight off of him, stuck as she was in the snow, and it became a sort of dance, each moving limbs to let the other person by. He didn't get much room, but he didn't need it. Just enough to give his hand and eyes a clear shot at the drift.

"Ready?" he murmured, stretching, and she breathed a soft "yes" from her awkward position shoved against the wall.

He nodded and melted the snow.

It was like a dam breaking, the cold water flooded over them so quickly. There was a lot, too. Much more than she imagined, and it nearly filled the enclosure. Natquik under her was immediately submerged, and she had to press her head to the ceiling to take a deep breath. Against her cheek, the tunnel rumbled dangerously, and she thought she could hear Hikoshu's voice over the strange echo of water on ice.

Gulping air, she used their newfound buoyancy to maneuver over Natquik, pulling him under her, away from her, as one hand tugged at the ceiling. She just had to get him between her and the now-open entrance.

He was fighting her, though, as he started to run out of air. He needed to get to the surface to breathe, and she needed him out of her way. So Miyo fended off his hands, used her knees—whatever she could to push herself against the very back of the tunnel.

And finally, she was there, the cold biting into her until it hurt to think, the walls shuddering so hard that she didn't know if they would hold up long enough. But Natquik was past her, and he came up sputtering around her legs, further up the tunnel. He clung to the ceiling just as she had, gasping for breath.

Then she airbended.

Her breath had given her focus, as well as an idea. Pressing her lips near the ceiling, she sucked in all the air that she should—so much air that her ribs ached and her lungs balanced on verge of exploding—and then, her abdomen jerking with the effort, she exhaled forcefully. The resultant air blast was strong enough to rip Natquik away from the tunnel; both he and the water shot out and upward, moved with the gale that she created.

Miyo waited a second more to see if he would come back down, but he didn't. Then, twisting onto her stomach, she pushed her hands against the wall with the intention to propel herself out as well.

It was then that she heard the wall snap. And everything collapsed.

**xxXxxxXxxXxxxXxx**

Hikoshu had no idea what her plan was. Miyo could only airbend, and in such a small space, that was tantamount to suicide. Any attempts to bend the air would rip it out of their lungs, suffocating them before she accomplished anything. So after Natquik's announcement that Miyo had a plan, he was still doubtful. He sat close to the man-sized hole, ready to launch himself into the narrow opening if there was any sign that something had gone wrong.

He heard—and felt—the ground groan, which almost enough for him. But he hesitated at the sound of gurgling from the hole, as if it'd just filled with water. Pushing himself to his feet, he took a step back.

Just in time. Hikoshu barely missed being hit as water and a body erupted from the hole, bursting high into the air. Surprised, he managed to airbend a cushion under Natquik as he came back down, and deposited him safely in the snow. The stunned waterbender rolled to a stop several yards away. Even before Natquik landed, though, Hikoshu's attention was already back on the hole, waiting for Miyo to appear, as well.

She didn't.

The ground groaned louder, shaking under his feet, and then snapped. Nothing changed on the surface except for a light dusting of snow that shot half a foot in the air. In reality, the only reason he knew something serious had happened was the appearance of a larger puff of snow rising from the hole.

"Oh, Miyo." The groaning ceased, the trembling stopped. The tunnel had collapsed.

Hikoshu moved into action quickly, no longer caring to be safe. Swinging back onto one foot, he drew away his arms and then heaved them forward, and in response, the ground exploded.

Snow and ice flew sideways, ripped off the surface as he drew back and repeated the form. If he'd stopped to think, he might have realized how such a slicing motion would have hurt Miyo. But his thoughts were only on getting as deep as possible, as fast as possible.

If he didn't reach her soon, she was dead anyway.

His bending created an enormous trench, and so much snow filled the air that if he had uncovered her, he probably couldn't have seen her. Coughing, he stopped to examine the scene, not sure if he needed to keep going. Then abruptly, the snow was wiped from the air, and he turned to see Natquik behind him, drenched and panting, his hands held up as he bended away the flakes.

Able to see again, Hikoshu continued to dig.

Before he could go any deeper, however, the trench suddenly burst into yet another cloud of snow, ice chunks pelting him as he threw up his arms. It wasn't his doing, and he tried to see beyond the white haze into the bottom of the hole. Natquik was obliging again, bending away the flakes as he approached Hikoshu's side.

Choking, Miyo dragged herself from a shallow pit at the bottom, pulling herself onto the smooth floor.

Natquik jumped into the trench faster than he could, skidding down the steep sides as he ran to her. Hikoshu was right behind him, though, dodging errant chunks of ice. When they finally reached her, Miyo had flipped over onto her back, holding her heaving breast, wet strands of hair stuck to her face and her orange robes plastered to her body.

Natquik was already examining her by the time Hikoshu reached them, a water-gloved hand on her head. "Good spirits, Miyo, what did you do?" he said, ripping away his soaked hood from his face.

"Air shield," she managed hoarsely, swallowing hard to regain her voice. "Held the ice up." Which also meant it had pulled the air out of her lungs. Starting into a coughing fit, she pushed Natquik's hand off of her head. Then she smiled weakly at Hikoshu as he knelt beside her, and reached up to grasp his knee. "You aren't dead."

"Surprisingly, neither are you," Natquik muttered, sitting back at the rebuke. Hikoshu simply returned the smile and covered her hand with his.

Furrowing her tattooed brow, she glanced between them both, her expression almost sad. "The next time I visit, could we just play table games?"

Hikoshu couldn't help but laugh. "I'm just glad there'll be a next time."

"Come on," Natquik said, taking her arm to lift her out of the snow. "Back to the bison and then back home." Still coughing, Miyo complied. Hikoshu, for his part, didn't think there was a more beautiful word than 'home.' With both relief and eagerness, he helped them both out of the pit. Turning his back on Rajio Bay, hopefully forever.

**

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A/N: **Again, this chapter is unbeta'd, so seriously, if you've got _any _comments at all, it can only make this chapter better. Feel like leaving a review? You rock. Feel too shy to post your thoughts publically? PMs work just as well. Feedback, in any form, is really appreciated.

Updates will be faster from now on, I think.


	13. Ch 12: In Dreams and Farewells

**Chapter 12 - In Dreams and Farewells**

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Hikoshu had no desire to tell Miyo or Natquik of the events in the Spirit World—not while they were exhausted, and not while they remained in Rajio Bay. Unfortunately, none of them were in a state to travel, and much to his dismay, their departure was delayed a night. Yet he wasn't about to argue; the previous evening had taken a toll on Miyo, who wearily helped him unsaddle Tehsa but could not hide the raw nerves that still plagued her. Even sleeping inside a shelter that night seemed to alarm her, though the cold and the threat of storms kept her from staying outside.

When they left before sunrise the next day, her spirits seemed somewhat improved. Enough that, near midday, Hikoshu decided to recount his meeting with Kwandek. He told them everything he could remember, Miyo joining them in the back of the saddle soon after he began, until there was nothing left to tell. Except his suspicions about Koh's involvement. That brushed too closely to his own past, and he couldn't be sure how much Miyo would read into his hesitation. He reasoned, though, it was a minor detail, that didn't prevent them from understanding the bigger issues at hand.

"So it really is attacking Northerners?" Natquik looked in a lot better shape than he had when coming out of the ground. He wasn't much cleaner than yesterday, but a night of rest had improved his demeanor and cleared his eyes, which now regarded Hikoshu, half-lidded, from across Tehsa's saddle. "Then we have a pattern." He rubbed a mittened hand across his face, the two plaits of beaded hair shoved conveniently behind his ears to avoid the wind.

"I'm not sure," Hikoshu said, clasping his hands over a bent knee as he huddled low in the saddle. "Now all we know is that _anyone_ who's been to the North is in danger. And that covers a pretty large number of Southerners, yourself included."

"You also still don't know if it's only men in the South being attacked," Miyo added distantly, her attention on the fabric in her lap. She'd fared worse both mentally and physically in coming out of the ice, and though Natquik could heal the majority of her scrapes, her shawl and robes were still torn. Now she at least attempted to repair the shawl, Natquik's sewing kit beside her. "Who knows what's happening in the North?"

Natquik, sitting next to her, shot her a thoughtful frown. "Well, it's not a lot of information, but it's something, at least. Something we can watch out for."

"Except that you still don't know how to stop it," she said, glancing up at him from below her brows. The wind yanked at her hair and habit, her long orange sleeves covering all but the tips of her tattoos. "What good is knowing who will be attacked if you can't help them, anyway?"

"You have a point." Natquik glanced dully to Hikoshu. "So what exactly did we risk our lives for?"

"The point is that we now have a place to look." He refrained from scowling, folding his arms across his chest. "There's a scroll about this spirit somewhere, and it's either in the Chief's Household in the North, or in the Great Library."

"The Great Library is half-a-world away and a little hard to find." Miyo finally looked up from her darning, dropping the saffron-colored shawl into her lap. "Even if you left tomorrow, who knows how many more people will die before you find what you're looking for?"

"They're going to die if I _don't_ go. It seems to me that we stand a better chance if I try."

"And where are you going to find a sandbender?" she continued as if not hearing him, poking the needle in his direction. "They're a very insular culture! I doubt you could get one of them to just turn around and take you to the library."

Theoretically, he knew a sandbender—he had actually _been_ a sandbender, in his previous life. But Avatar Sidhari had not been there to meet him in the Spirit World, nor had he spoken to her in the four years since their last confrontation. Hikoshu wondered if she even wanted to talk to him. He wondered if it was possible for a past manifestation of himself to _want_ something.

"I'm the Avatar, Miyo," he answered instead. "I exist outside of culture." She grunted as she grabbed the flapping fabric in her lap, obviously no longer convinced by his "Avatar" argument.

"We can always go to Omashu," Natquik said, and Hikoshu looked at him in surprise. "They've been having border issues with the sandbenders for years now. I imagine there has to be a diplomat there with some good relations to the sand tribes."

He felt his stomach sink at the suggestion. "No. We can't do that."

"What?" Natquik was baffled. Miyo, however, followed his train of thought more quickly, and the expression she wore was one of tried patience.

"Oh, Hikoshu, don't be ridiculous," she said tiredly, as if dealing with a child. "Do you really think she's there?" Taking pity on Natquik's confusion, she turned to him in explanation. "Hikoshu's worried that Yan-lin will be in Omashu."

That was an understatement. He _dreaded _the idea of Yan-lin being there. He dreaded the idea of ever seeing her again. The last time he had seen her, she had single-handedly betrayed him—and thus the world—to the men who had wanted to destroy him. And then she quite literally stabbed him in the back.

She was the last person Hikoshu had any desire to see.

"She's a diplomat in the Northwest Territories," Natquik agreed, the topic of conversation all too familiar to him as well. "There is no reason she'd be in Omashu." Other than being the daughter of a powerful Omashu general. He didn't voice his fears, as Natquik continued to chastise him. "Regardless, you can't run from the past, thinking if you avoid it then the problem never really existed. _That's_ how people get hurt. Or killed."

"And you stop being dramatic," Miyo suddenly said to him, gesturing with the sharp, fishbone needle. He looked at her innocently. "Hikoshu has more sense than to avoid a whole city because of one girl. Don't you, Hikoshu?" Miyo was always good at cowing him with those looks, and he shrugged uncomfortably. She seemed to think it was agreement, though, and continued to darn.

"Besides," she added, "you won't be going to Omashu with Hikoshu, anyway."

"Wait—"

"Natquik, you're getting married in a month!" She turned on him so abruptly, Natquik actually drew back. "You don't have time to wander across the desert and look for libraries." Natquik was almost as intimidated by those looks as Hikoshu, as he flinched at her stern glare. "Dear spirits, you both are like children, thinking you can just put things off."

"This is a little more important than a marriage," Natquik countered wryly, and the level frown she gave him over her shawl actually led into several moments of awkward silence. "Well, it is!"

"It's important to Hikoshu, who is the Avatar. You just want to run off and have adventures with him."

"She has a good point," Hikoshu said, and it was Natquik's turn to scowl. "Look, I want someone to come with me—believe me, I'd really rather not be alone. But while I search the Great Library, someone should be searching the Northern library, too. And since you're going to be up there anyway…"

Natquik didn't seem to agree with his utility in such a manner, but he also didn't protest. Satisfied, Hikoshu concluded, "So the way I look at it, Miyo can drop me off at Omashu, and then she can take you to the North Pole."

"Hold on," Miyo said, startled as she dropped her shawl, just as Natquik pinned him with a suspicious frown.

"I thought you weren't going to Omashu."

"Well, there's no avoiding it," he said, ignoring Miyo. "I need a sandbender and the closest place with people trained specifically to deal with sandbenders is Omashu."

"Excuse me," she snapped, and he finally glanced at her. "What's this about me giving you a ride?"

"You're the only person we know with a flying bison?" Hikoshu allowed himself to be a little patronizing, since the tables were so rarely turned. "We won't beat the storms without one."

"The storms have come early this season." Natquik nodded sagely, and she shot him a scathing look that likely had to do with his failure to recognize the squall. "Well, he's right. If we don't have a bison, we'll never even make land in the Earth Kingdom."

"Then I'll take you to the Southern Air Temple and you can figure it out from there." Her back had gone rigid and her arrow nearly touched a point between her eyebrows. "I am not flying to the other side of the world just to give you two a ride."

"Fine, but that'll be—what would you say, Natquik? Three, four days out of our way?"

"Oh, a week, easily. Maybe more."

"So a week out of our way. And you were wondering how many people will die while I'm looking blindly for a library?"

Cornering her with her own words. There was nothing that infuriated Miyo more, and he could see her hands clench into un-Nun-like fists in her lap. She looked between them as she fumed silently, her thoughts racing frantically behind dark eyes. Her obstinacy, it occurred to him, was perhaps due to the fact she wasn't supposed to be flying Tehsa all over the world, and she didn't want her fellow Air Nuns finding out.

But he had her. She couldn't argue, and she knew it.

"So it's settled," Hikoshu said after several long moments of Miyo failing to form an excuse. "I'm going to Omashu, you're going to get married, and Miyo's going to take us there."

"Does anyone else find it funny that _none_ of us got anything we wanted out of this?" Natquik said, which didn't amuse either Hikoshu or Miyo. "Just thought that I'd point that out."

"Yeah, well, we have our parts to play." Hikoshu slid lower in the saddle so that he could lay his head back. Another week on a bison. Even though he was in the air already, his stomach still churned unpleasantly at the prospect. But at least they hadn't insisted he take a bison from Omashu to the Si Wong Desert.

They'd only been gone for a week, but by the time the three arrived back at the village, Hikoshu honestly felt like it had been a month. Which, he realized as they unloaded Tehsa with muted enthusiasm, that was actually about true. It'd been about a month since the first murders, and ever since then, he'd been away from home in some attempt to solve them.

Now, if they wanted to beat the storms, they'd be leaving again soon, and Hikoshu's absence would be even longer this time. It was honestly a bit depressing, to think he'd soon be on the move and once more without a home to return to. But these were his responsibilities, he thought wearily as they trudged, without fanfare, back into the village. Around them, women tanned hides and children played hunter-and-wolf, and from all appearances, life had returned to normal. They didn't even shoot him the cold, unhappy glares that he'd received before their departure for Rajio Bay. Maybe because they thought he was actually doing something. Maybe because no one else had died. He didn't know.

Miyo left them at the edge of the village. She could have accompanied them to hold audience with the chief, despite its impropriety, but she looked worn and her robes were still in disrepair, ripped such that Hikoshu could see the yellow leggings underneath. So she excused herself and gave Hikoshu one of the many encouraging hugs she'd been giving him lately, just before she left for her hut.

As he and Natquik made their way toward the kashiq, Hikoshu looked for Mayami but didn't expect to see her. They were in the vicinity of her grandfather's hut, which had been leveled the night before they left. Everyone avoided it now as if the very ground was poisoned, and Mayami was likely to be far away, possibly on the other side of the village. There wasn't much chance he would happen to run into her.

He didn't have time to dwell on it, though. As Natquik had outlined, they needed to tell Atua what he'd seen, find out if anything else had happened in their absence, and leave promptly. Hikoshu was hoping 'promptly' meant a few more days, and Natquik certainly would have agreed. But the building clouds they'd seen on the shoreline were stretching over the land, and the first harbingers of the season scuttled in the sky like oversized koala-sheep.

Atua was not at the kashiq. Shaman Tati, however, was already there after catching news of their return; almost as soon as Hikoshu and Natquik entered, he set on them with questions. Unfortunately, two other tribesmen were also present, playing a game of chance with drift-mole bones on the far side of the community building. Reluctant to talk in front of them, Hikoshu gave Tati only vague answers as they waited on a shelf of ice, raised near the door.

Eventually, Atua returned from his task—apparently settling a fishing hole dispute on the lake—and entered the room with large, heavy strides, Kinu following just behind. He was as commanding as always, his stare by itself enough to scare the two men out of the kashiq without a single word. Guessing from his manner, Hikoshu assumed that the fight had not ended well, and he was almost brusque as he approached.

"Any news, Avatar?"

Both Tati and Natquik stood in order to speak with Atua on his level, but Hikoshu was just too tired. He simply nodded as he twisted in his seat to face the chief and Kinu. "It seems almost certain this is the work of a Shaman."

Neither Tati, Kinu, nor Atua reacted visibly, but the air did seem to grow colder. Or maybe that was just his imagination. After a stilted pause, Kinu cleared his throat. "So this is our own doing."

"And how to stop it?" Atua pressed, obviously more interested in solutions. Hikoshu, unfortunately, had none.

"I don't know. But I'm going to find out." Then he told them what he'd learned. He spoke of the spirit he'd seen in the lake, and how she—whoever 'she' was—had been there in his journey to the Spirit World. He spoke of the Avatars who had recounted, in their disjointed way, a patchy history of visits from this same spirit, dating back to the clan wars. Finally, he told them of the scroll, hidden in one of two libraries, which may—or may not—hold the key to stopping the spirit. Once again, he neglected to mention Koh.

"So how did the Tribesmen banish her before?" Atua asked at the conclusion of his story. Hikoshu didn't know that and said as much; he wasn't even sure if they had.

"There are a lot of stories associated with the clan wars," Tati said, rubbing at his thick upper lip in thought. As a Shaman of stories, he was the keeper of all oral histories of the village, and the one most likely to know of this spirit if it had terrorized the village before. After a moment, he shook his head, the copper plates in his ears hitting his jaw. "There are a lot of stories forgotten since that time, too. I know several instances of women trapped below the ice, but none that old."

"And yet women spirits aren't killers." Kinu looked frustrated—a look he rarely ever wore. "Even murdered spirits will demand revenge through their families; they do not commit murder themselves."

But this spirit had been female, Hikoshu was certain of it. There seemed to be no doubt among the Avatars, either. "What happened during the clan wars?" he said instead, changing the subject. The gender of the spirit was far less important than her origin.

Tati shrugged, crossing his hands to hide them in his sleeves. "The North had become overpopulated, too large to support its people. Inter-clan fighting broke out, which then led to larger group feuds. Eventually, one of those groups was banished to the South to form our tribe."

Atua grinned with something close to pride. "The strongest group was banished because they were threatening the 'civilized' lives of those in the North. We were forced to leave before we overcame our Northern brethren with our sheer strength." Tati didn't look like he necessarily agreed, but he did grin in a mirror image of Atua's rousing tribal pride.

"Could this spirit be that of a victim from the war?" Hikoshu asked, and Kinu sighed.

"Possibly, though that does little to help us. There were many victims of the clan wars."

Hikoshu had to fight to suppress a groan. However small a lead it was, the history of the clan wars was pretty much his only starting point. Now he felt just as lost as he had before Rajio Bay, no closer to understanding the murders. "Then do you know anything about Minoq's time in the North?"

Tati stared at him with apparent apathy as Atua said, "All Southern Water Tribesmen spend time in the North." Only Kinu seemed honestly disturbed by the question, his long eyebrows twitching as he frowned slowly, his eyes shifting to the left as if distracted. Yet as he was behind Atua's shoulder, blocked from view of Tati and Natquik, no one seemed to notice but Hikoshu.

"Anything special about what he did there?" he continued, and again, Atua regarded him blankly.

"Minoq was just a hunter. Nothing spiritual about his time there."

Perhaps if Minoq had done something in the North, they might have found a similar link in the histories of the others. But if Atua knew of anything, then he was particularly good at lying. The lead seemed just as much a dead-end as the clan wars. Finally pushing himself to a stand, Hikoshu managed a small bow that hid his frustration.

"I plan to go to the Great Library myself. It might be easier for me to find, and if there's something I can do there, we won't have to delay in waiting for a messenger."

The explanation wasn't needed, as no one seemed to doubt the logic of him going. Blinking perpetually watery eyes, Tati asked, "When will you leave?" Natquik, who had managed to fade into the background of the meeting until now, answered for him.

"The storms are here, so as soon as possible."

Atua predicted Hikoshu's next question. "There have been no more deaths since you left. A week is not a long time, but we hope that the spirit has returned to its own world. With any luck, your journey will have no point."

"Even so, I'll hurry."

"I'll set up a review of the Shamans," Kinu said at his shoulder, apparently overcoming his earlier discomfort, "and will have each village searched. If this is the work of a Shaman, he will be discovered."

"Or she," Natquik quipped, which didn't garner grins or thoughtful agreements. "This spirit's killing only men. Could be a woman who's tired of doing laundry."

"We will search all waterbenders," Kinu amended, giving Natquik a look that lacked amusement. "Everyone who might know how to call on spirits."

"Great. And I'll take charge of a search in the North." Natquik had on his most altruistic expression, as if volunteering to head North and lead their campaign was simply part of his giving nature. "I'll look for clues and information there."

"Just as long as it doesn't interfere with your marriage," Atua said, which implied that he knew that it would. Natquik didn't look sullen, which was at least to his credit. "Tati, would you accompany him?"

Now, that certainly did bother Natquik. With a quick frown, he held up his hands to forestall the idea. "To avoid the storms, Hikoshu and I will have to travel by bison. And, really, that many people will just slow us down." It wouldn't. "We need to move as quickly as possible."

They all looked to Hikoshu for confirmation—as if he would know all about bison, and by being the Avatar, he was incapable of lying to help out a friend. Unfortunately for them, Hikoshu wanted to have Tati around just as little as Natquik. He hated to let anyone know his fear of heights, and a week on Tehsa was unpleasant enough without adding on the chore of hiding his misery. So he nodded emphatically.

"Bison tire out fast with too large of loads." True, though 'large of loads' would be something like five buffalo-yak.

Tati's reaction was ambiguous, but Hikoshu noted what he thought was disappointment in the thick lines of the Shaman's face. Tugging up his hood in anticipation of the cold outside, he nodded.

"I'll go see to preparations for your departure. We'll send ahead a record of what you've told us." Tati then turned to make his exit, and Kinu looked about to do the same. Hikoshu needed to get him alone, though, and he quickly ran over excuses that might let him.

Atua obliged him unwittingly. "Shaman Kinu, Master Avatar. If you wouldn't mind, I would like a word with Shaman Natquik alone."

As he bowed and took leave with Kinu, Hikoshu winced inwardly, feeling bad for Natquik. The air of the room held a sense of trouble, like it did when Hikoshu was a young novice, standing before his master after he was caught singeing off the eyebrows of a sleeping acolyte. He wasn't quite sure what Natquik was being chastised for doing—certainly not singeing eyebrows—but he could ask about it later.

At least it left him alone with Kinu, and Hikoshu forgot Natquik the moment they were out of the kashiq. Kinu hadn't looked over at him, perhaps guessing from Hikoshu's furtive glances what he was about to say, or perhaps thinking about all the things he now had to do. His brow certainly seemed heavy with worry, casting shadows over eyes that were framed by folds of dark skin. His mouth, curved in a frown over his white, wispy beard, twitched involuntarily.

"I suppose if you're ever going to ask me, Hikoshu, you should do so before I return to the practice field." His voice was dry and disinterested, completely untouched by the apparent concern that worked at his face. "Unless you prefer to stare dumbfounded, but you could do that while I teach just as well."

"What about Minoq, Master Kinu?" No point in avoiding the issue. But he did lower his voice as they made their way along the large, snow-packed lane that wended through the huts to the training court. Though there weren't a lot of people around, he still felt uncomfortable speaking Minoq's name aloud.

"You're wanting to know what had upset me about your question," Kinu summarized with apparent indifference. "What is so special about Minoq in the North."

"Obviously something happened."

"Perhaps." His frown deepened pensively, and he squinted up at the sky as if seeing his own memories there. "During the war, nearly fifty years past, I was elected as the informal leader of our youngest warriors. As the son of a chief, I was expected to take command of the apprentice waterbenders and lead them in fights. Minoq, who was under my charge, left for the North before fighting began. He was gone for fifteen years."

Uncomfortable, Kinu rubbed at his neck as his gaze fell to the snow. "He came back different. Of course, he left when he was young, and fifteen years will change anyone, especially during a war. But his Northern wife—Tinana, was her name—she told me that they had returned to the South looking for a cure for some terrible nightmares he was having."

"What kind of nightmares?" Hikoshu urged as Kinu stopped talking. He didn't respond immediately, his mouth pursing with the effort of memory.

"I don't know. I asked, but Tinana wouldn't tell me and Minoq insisted he was fine. All I could do was look for malevolent spirits and perform some minor healing. It was a hopeless case."

"But what's so odd about nightmares?"

"Well, from what I gathered from his daughter, who had to be about ten at the time, Minoq was having nightmares about fighting. Blood, fear, deaths, and guilt. The kinds of dreams that would haunt any veteran of war."

Hikoshu didn't bother hiding his confusion. "Like you said, any veteran would have similar dreams." The look that Kinu gave him held a hint of disgust.

"Do you nothing of the war?" It was a rhetorical question, and Kinu shook his head. "As I said, I was the son of the chief and therefore a leader of sorts for the younger warriors. I knew every man who came from the North to help, as the North itself didn't participate in the fighting."

A long pause followed, as he pinned Hikoshu with a severe eye, still apparently waiting for him to draw the inevitable conclusion. With wounded pride, Hikoshu balked, part of him petulantly forcing Kinu to spell it out. "I did not see Minoq for another fifteen years. He never came down to fight with us." Yet another pause. "Hikoshu, he had those dreams, but he was never in the war."

**xxXxxxXxxXxxxXxx**

After all the weeks of uncertainty and fear, as well as dread about the approaching storms, the tribesmen did what any village would do—they held a party.

It was actually a party for Natquik, thrown together hastily in preparation for his departure. But they all needed some way to reduce the tension that had built up over the two strange deaths, and with the end of the requisite nine days of community mourning, the villagers were eager to celebrate. Natquik's impending marriage was as good a reason as any, and in the days after their return to the village, everyone grew excited.

In that ensuing time, Hikoshu didn't have many opportunities to speak to Natquik about what Kinu had told him, or even to find out what Atua had admonished him about. His friend was too focused on finding that one waterbender to replace him as the village's healer, which was something he had come to regret his feet-dragging on.

So Hikoshu spent his time with Miyo. A _lot_ of time, now that Mayami was gone. She'd apparently left south for her future-husband's clan while he was away, and though he regretted not having a chance to say goodbye properly, he also knew it was for the best. She'd only stayed there because of her grandfather; now she needed to move on to her new life. Miyo pointed out how it was unfortunate that he wouldn't have a chance to ask her about Minoq's nightmares. Hikoshu knew she was trying to give him an excuse to go find her. Hikoshu also knew he would never do that.

The day of the festivities was hectic. Every man had stayed in from the tundra, so that the village was brimming with activity. Mostly daily chores—the women still had work to do, and the men were under foot as they dressed arctic hippo meat and plucked the snow geese that would be in the feast. Only the children were actively expressing the carefree attitude of the adults, taunting each other with bone noise makers and playing snow games in between the huts.

When Hikoshu was finally dismissed from his waterbending lessons that afternoon—lessons he insisted on having as he'd soon not have them anymore—he wanted to add to the palpable excitement building in the air. In his mind, those were fireworks—the hallmark of all Fire Nation festivals. Unfortunately, though they had one of the most powerful firebenders at their disposal, the people doubtfully wanted a reminder of Minoq on such a day. And so Hikoshu, with nothing to contribute, just spent the afternoon with Miyo. Again.

"Are they going to have anything edible?" she asked as they sat on top of Hikoshu's hut, watching the plumes of cook-fires scatter in the strong breeze. He shrugged as he struggled to tie his hair back against the wind, finally pulling off a glove to manage it.

"You've been to these things. Have they ever?"

"I really don't understand how they don't starve to death as a culture."

"Try the boiled sea prunes. Once you get past the smell…and the taste…they're not all that bad."

She laughed and folded her now repaired robes under her, her mood vastly improved since Rajio Bay. In reality, she had bounced back a lot faster than she would've years before, and Hikoshu wondered if she had changed so much without him noticing. "So did you ever learn why Natquik's the one getting married to the princess?" She shot him a brilliant smile, making him grin at their little in-joke. Natquik had avoided telling them over the years, until it was almost a game trying to guess the reason.

"Not really. Natquik still refuses to say why they didn't look to his brothers first." By tradition, only the children of chiefs married; however, Natquik's uncle, who had been the elected Southern Chief when Princess Sahani was born, did not have any children. In such cases, tradition dictated that engagements default to the children of siblings. But why it had defaulted to Natquik, the youngest of three brothers, when he was only ten-years-old remained a great mystery.

"So what about Chief Atua's daughters?" Miyo asked after a moment, her smile fading. "Would one of them marry Sahani's and Natquik's son?"

Hikoshu didn't think so. They were almost of marrying age already, far too old for any son born within the next few years. Likely, one of Atua's younger nephews or nieces would be engaged instead. Or perhaps the North would wait out the end of Atua's run as Southern Chief, and engage their child to the offspring of whoever was elected to replace him.

"I don't know," he finally answered, deciding it was too complicated to explain. Perhaps that was why Natquik had never bothered to explain it to them. "Their traditions don't make a whole lot of sense."

Miyo sighed. "So ridiculous. It seems to me if traditions don't make sense, it makes even less sense to keep following them when you obviously don't want to."

That was an understatement. The Tribal marriage contract was an old custom that was quickly becoming outdated. Yet the Water Tribes clung to it, as if losing such a concept meant they were losing part of themselves. For them, it strengthened the relationship between two tribes which otherwise had little in common. The 'civilized' North, as Atua called it, versus the primitive South. The North that reached out to establish trade relationships with its neighbors, versus the South that hid away from the world. The North that was forgetting its own language, versus the South that still remembered the old stories. Yet however different they were, they were also very much the same. After all, neither could admit that the sister tribes were growing apart.

"Natquik's going to miss all of this, isn't he?" Miyo said after a long silence, her expression wistful as she folded her arms over her knees. Hikoshu glanced over at her, then shrugged again.

"Probably. It's pretty much all he's ever wanted."

"I miss the Western Air Temple." Her voice was somber. "I miss it whenever I'm gone too long." Hikoshu would have added his own yearning for the Fire Nation, but he'd long since given up hope of seeing his home country again. So he had put it in his past.

"Yeah, I miss the Air Temple, too."

"Right. You who can barely handle being on a bison."

"That's not fair! I'm on top of this roof, aren't I?"

Miyo smirked and gave him a shove in the arm. The surprise attack had the desired result; Hikoshu gasped, scrabbling at the ice to keep himself from sliding off the side. He wasn't even close to falling, though, and she laughed at him as he straightened.

"Very regal, Master Airbender."

The evening marked the beginning of the real festivities, when everyone's work for the day was done. They gathered at the kashiq, which was now lit up like day. Every oil lamp was burning, every fire pot an inferno, as round as the cisterns that stood between them along the walls. They'd bended benches from the ice floors in front of the walls, and as the women came in, they took these seats, forcing younger children between their knees. The men seated themselves cross-legged near the center of the room, their bodies forming a thick ring around the outer edge of the Water Tribe sigil.

Hours of merriment and music followed. It was mostly a time to talk and joke, and even though at any given moment, most people were sitting, they didn't stay seated for long. The men took to games of strength almost immediately, and those wanting to challenge each other—both in jest and in serious duels—stood on top of the sigil to the cheers of their fellow tribesmen. They performed various types of games: boxing, wrestling, martial arts, even waterbending. All matches ended the same, when one of the fighters gave up or was too hurt to continue. They then made their way from the inner circle of men to the outer circle of women, where the female waterbenders had their own contests of healing.

The women, unfortunately, were not allowed to participate in the duels. It wasn't that their strengths were doubted—some were most certainly more powerful than the men. But it was a time to celebrate virility, as the feast was to see Natquik off in his marriage. So the women sat outside the fights and jeered the losers just as roughly as the warriors did.

Hikoshu was seated among the men of his foster clan, but he wasn't there long; as the Avatar, he was challenged to duels twice as often as other warriors. He readily accepted the boxing and waterbending duels, as well as the martial arts. As a master of nearly three elements, he handily won all of them—despite Miyo and Natquik shouting that he was cheating with his techniques. What he didn't win, though, were the wrestling matches, and at least twice, he was dragged to the sidelines to heal a sprained arm or a twisted foot.

Fortunately, no one had any interest in challenging him to duels he could obviously lose.

After that, the games switched to other kinds: dancing and singing games, the latter which the women joined. Miyo, as far as Hikoshu could tell, was invited at one point to join in from her place along the walls, but she refused, choosing instead a passive role in the feast.

It might have had something to do with the food being served. In one glimpse of her, he saw that she'd turn awfully green. He wasn't sure if it was from the variety of boiled, roasted, pickled, spiced, dried, and fried meats, or if it was from the variety of boiled, roasted, pickled, spiced, dried, and fried vegetables that were passed from person to person.

Natquik, on the other hand, was having a great time. He blended in with his clan, only noticeable by the necklace of penguin-otter feet he wore around his neck. Yet the entire section of the leopard-yak clan held an aura of distinction, as it deserved; they were being honored by this union, and they celebrated. Loudly, and lewdly. Natquik didn't participate in the duels because, as the men joked, they didn't want to embarrass him in front of the spirits before his wedding, and they didn't want to leave him too weak for his wedding bed.

Those weren't the only jokes. Both men and women alike would stand up and make quips about his virility, always at Natquik's expense. On the night before the wedding, when this would have normally taken place, it was meant to convince the spirits that Natquik was not someone to waste their time on cursing; he was already cursed with being generally too pathetic.

Natquik's father Sanak, who looked eerily like a much older Natquik with his fading hair and weathered face, stood after the end of a dance. "I have expected this time for many years. Too many years. And now I fear the spirits will look at my son and his bride and think they are old enough only to be grandparents." That evoked a round of laughter from the closest men—it was doubtful anyone else could really hear him.

His uncle Chu stood up to deliver his own taunt. "The spirits will forgive his age but his bride will not! She'll see him as old as a man but as inexperienced as a boy who hasn't ice-dodged." That also got a series of rude laughs, even from Natquik, who didn't seem nearly as abashed as Hikoshu would have been. "So for the honor of my clan, I'll offer him my son's own wife for this night."

This was traditional fare, as was the angry protest from the offered-wife at the walls. Standing, Banik waved her hand in mock-ire, her large girth blocking a woman or two from sight. "Chu, I gladly accept this offer! Your son is not strong enough for me, and I need a younger man who may keep up."

Now it was her husband's turn to protest, and so the cycle continued. So warm were the festivities that Hikoshu actually forgot about his concerns for a little while. No evil spirits, no mysterious deaths, no general calumny directed at him—just a comfortable sense of community he had never experienced anywhere else. These people were a family, more closely bonded than even the Nuns at the Western Air Temple.

Toward the end of the night, Natquik finally stood to make his own speech, signaling for a little silence. "This is a wonderful celebration, even though the meat is a little stringy and the games a little boring." Laughs and jeers. "But I'm glad to see the men around me—" and then Hikoshu lost the joke as Natquik switched into the Water Tribe language, probably for a pun that wouldn't make much sense outside of it. He caught a word that meant 'fat with food,' which could also mean 'living off the hard work of others.' Whatever it was, it garnered more laughs and several claps on the back for some of the onlookers.

"Anyway, we've come to a more serious matter of the evening. As I'm leaving tomorrow, I've finally chosen someone to replace me in my role as healer of this village." Despite his claim of gravity, Natquik's announcement was greeted with even more levity. It took him several moments to signal for the quiet that he would need to make his appointment. Then, following another short speech regarding the qualities of the person he'd chosen, Natquik proclaimed Pama as the village's new healer, amidst cheers and applause. As demanded by tradition, each of the Shamans stood up to lend their agreement to this arrangement, including Pama's husband Tati, who winked at her as he repeated the ritualistic words. Sirmik, the only representative of her clan there, as well as Atua also gave their approval of the selection, after which Pama stood to address the crowd.

Blushing and shooing off the neighboring women, she spoke up, her voice surprisingly strong for such a small woman. "I would refuse such an honor, but the support of these proud warriors and Shamans gladdens my heart and emboldens my nerve. I would be honored to serve as this village's healer."

The noise was deafening as she moved for the center of the circle, and Natquik placed the penguin-otter necklace on her. Then the celebration switched from one of Natquik to one of Pama, as the women began to infiltrate the inner circle in order to tease her.

Hikoshu took the opportunity of the mingling to sneak back to the ice benches and sit beside Miyo. She grinned up at him, looking a little less pale than she had earlier.

"Nice job taking down that last waterbender."

"Tigak is an oaf. He never watches his feet," Hikoshu said, rubbing the sweat off the back of his neck. It was actually hot in there, with all those fires and bodies. Tomorrow, they'd probably have to repair the kashiq, depending on how much the walls had melted. "Nice job just sitting here."

"Well, unlike _some _people, I don't like to overshadow an honored person at his own party." The snide remark was followed by a smirk, and she turned her gaze back over the crowd.

"Natquik makes it too easy, though."

"And what are you doing here? You have days to talk to me. Some of these people, you may never see again."

"That's a little melodramatic, don't you think? I'll only be gone a couple of months."

Miyo simply gave a soft 'hmph,' throwing him a dubious look.

"Hikoshu!" Bent to look past Miyo, Poni shouted from her spot several places down the ice bench. "Go challenge Sinkai to a dance! I bet two cotton robes that you're more light-footed than he."

Hikoshu hesitated, glancing back to Miyo, who in turn smirked even more broadly. "Go get him, twinkle-toes."

The party didn't end until just before dawn. Hikoshu was so tired, he was going cross-eyed and incoherent. Everyone else, on the other hand, seemed to handle it better than him, even the men who had to be into their nineties. It was embarrassing, yet despite their mockery, he at least made it to the end, when he staggered home half-asleep.

Conditioned to rising at dawn, he did just that. Despite the early hour, Natquik was already there, beating on the leather flaps of the hut to wake him up. He couldn't have had more than a couple of hours of sleep, considering they had kept him up later than Hikoshu. But he greeted the day with a happy attitude and renewed energy.

Hikoshu, however, was cranky and still tired. Even Miyo—whom, he noted in irritation, was also up-beat—commented on it, suggesting they put off the departure until "Avatar Grumpy" had had a few more hours of sleep. Which would've been fine with him, but Natquik already had a crowd to see him off, and nothing would stop him from basking in the last-moment attention given to him by his own clan.

So Hikoshu leaned against Tehsa, trying to stay awake, while Natquik said good-bye to his family. All twenty-five members, by his count. Unfortunately, though, there was no Mayami. She was definitely gone.

Despite the amiable mood of the gathering, there was also a somber note to it. Everyone knew that this would be the last time they saw Natquik as himself. The next time they saw him, his status as well as his role would have changed. He would be the consort to a princess and future chieftess, no longer a Shaman or a healer.

He would not be a Southern Water Tribesman.

Kinu clapped his shoulder as the crowd began to depart, looking to give the waterbender some last words of advice. "Take care of Sahani. Though her mother is of Southern stock, my niece is raised in the Northern tradition and isn't so strong." Natquik grinned wryly at that.

"I don't know, Sahani's always impressed me with her strength."

"Then try not to let her walk all over you." Natquik laughed as Kinu stepped toward Hikoshu, rousing him from his half-slumber.

"Do you still have that charm I gave you?"

He did, tucked underneath his coat. At the reminder, Hikoshu reached to take it out, but Kinu held up a hand to stop him.

"I want you to keep it. You might need it, whereas I have plenty of old charms." Hikoshu nodded and dropped his arms. "You know how important it is to us that you are successful."

"Master Kinu, don't worry. I'm the Avatar. I'm _supposed_ to do things like this." If Kinu's expression could be described as worried, that reassurance did nothing to relieve it. With a single nod, he clasped Hikoshu's elbow in farewell as Hikoshu took his.

"You've very nearly mastered waterbending at this point, so I'm afraid I have no last advice on how to improve your form." The declaration caught him off-guard; he'd mastered waterbending? But Kinu was still speaking, so he didn't have an opportunity to ask him to explain. "Just remember that an opponent whom you do not control will control you."

"Thank you, Master Kinu." He gave a respectful bow, wondering what opponent Kinu was talking about. As far as he was aware, he was opponent-less. This would be just as quick as talking a sandbender into helping him.

As Kinu left, Hikoshu turned to Natquik to see if he was ready to leave. Atua at the moment was talking to him, and he barely caught the end of the conversation.

"…as we talked about."

"Of course," Natquik said, his expression worn. But Hikoshu didn't have a chance to ask, as Atua now addressed him.

"Get back as soon as possible."

"It'll be like I never even left," he said with a half-grin, growing a little tired of having to reassure people he wouldn't fail.

"Somehow I find that hard to believe." The chief couldn't conceal an eye-roll. "But the peace will nice, if for a little while."

Hikoshu wasn't really sure if he should be offended, but Atua was clasping his arm, as well, then taking his leave before he could decide. Staring after them with what was probably a sour expression, Hikoshu didn't notice Natquik trying to get his attention until he waved a hand in front of his face.

"Hikoshu, wake up! You can sleep on the bison," he said before bending himself into the saddle. Above him, Miyo gave an annoyed snort from her place on Tehsa's neck.

"You better get up here. I'm giving you exactly four weeks, starting right now." Frowning up at her, he tugged on his gloves.

"What are you going to do? Drop us on the side of a mountain?"

"Don't tempt me." He also failed to hide an eye-roll as he leapt up into the saddle.

A moment later, they were in the air, the South Pole growing small below them.

* * *

**A/N: **I said updates would be faster, but then I got terribly busy. _Now _they should be faster. Expect the next update within the week.


	14. Ch 13: Omashu

**Chapter 13 - Omashu**

* * *

"Wake up, _kahasi_. We're almost there."

A boot in the shoulder interrupted the most peaceful dream Hikoshu had had in nearly a week. One that didn't involve hunger, or cold, or being on the back of a bison. But even before he opened his eyes, it had started to fade. All he could remember as he blinked at the harsh blue sky was a blur of orange and grass.

"_Kahasi_?" That was Miyo's voice. Stretching his aching neck from where he rested on his pack, Hikoshu glanced around the saddle to spy her seated beside Natquik, just across from him. In the beginning of the trip, she had stuck reclusively to Tehsa's neck, choosing typical airbender stoicism over conversation. Yet somehow in the last few days, Natquik had broken down her usual reservations, and now Hikoshu inevitably awoke to find them both chatting, their backs propped against the bamboo slats.

"It's from a Water Tribe tale." Natquik used his teeth in order to yank a dried fish off its string, which he then offered to Hikoshu. He waved it away with a grimace as he pushed himself up from the saddle. Dried fish didn't sound too appetizing, but Miyo's tsampa actually did, much to his surprise. He never thought he'd crave tsampa again.

"What's it about?" Miyo said curiously, chewing a corner of the doughy bread. The question made Natquik grin over his respective fish meal, and he dusted his hands as he set it down.

"Well, it's the story of a Water Tribe man who was so lazy, he wouldn't even wake up in the mornings."

Hikoshu rolled his eyes at the tale, dragging his pack into his lap. Miyo loved stories and Natquik loved sharing them, so they'd probably be distracted for a while. Hikoshu, however, had heard this story several times and hadn't much cared for it even on the original telling. So as Natquik regaled a fascinated Miyo, he dug out a clean hide and his water skin in order to wash up.

The week had passed in relative peace. While they were still in the South Pole, the storms had prevented them from landing, and while crossing the Southern Ocean, there wasn't anything to land on. So that by the time they'd reached the continent, Hikoshu was grateful to see ground again.

And what ground it was! The further they traveled north, the closer the landscape resembled autumn. Such that the first rocky shores of the southern coast eventually changed into barren trees, and then to trees with a healthy coat of red-and-gold leaves. Unfortunately, Miyo would stop in the late afternoon, then leave at dawn the next morning. Most of the earth he saw only at dusk, the red sunlight setting the trees on fire. In order to cope with it, Hikoshu had taken to sleeping on Tehsa and staying awake during part of the evening. True, he was a little lonely because of it, but at least he was growing less and less airsick by the day.

When Hikoshu had finished scrubbing his face, hands, and any other part of his exposed body that could stand the freezing water, Natquik was in the middle of his story. "And the third time, the cave spirit presented him with a comb, telling him to brush her hair but not to pull a single strand." They'd forgotten about their food, so Hikoshu reached across the saddle and stole Miyo's tsampa from her lap. It earned him a glare, but she was so engrossed that she didn't scold him.

Plus the story reminded him that he probably needed a good grooming himself. So he stuck the tsampa between his teeth and fished a comb out of his pack, fighting with his tangle of black hair as he half-listened to Natquik.

He'd managed to subdue the wind-blown mop by nearly the end of the tale. "When the cave spirit discovered Kahasi had stolen her wolf-yak of bone," Natquik continued, his hands dancing through the air in time to his words, "she transformed back into a polar-dog and gave chase. Only when she left the cave did she also discover that he had stolen her sled that never got lost."

"Speaking of which, where are we?" Hikoshu's rude interruption resulted in yet another glare from Miyo, and even Natquik arched an eyebrow at him. But he did stop long enough in his oration to lift himself up from the saddle, peering over Tehsa's head.

"I'd say thirty leagues outside of nowhere," he said casually, settling back down.

"Tehsa's following the Persimmon Trail," Miyo said with some impatience. "Omashu's not far ahead."

"Well, I'm glad you woke me up for the scenery." Hikoshu assumed there were mountains, but he wasn't going to look to find out, and they flew too high for him to see anything but sky over the saddle edge. So he also didn't hide his sarcasm, pulling at his newly-formed topknot as he gnawed at the tsampa.

"Actually, you were snoring too loud to hear anything."

By the time Hikoshu mustered a snide look in retaliation, she'd already turned back to Natquik, anticipating the end of the story. Distracted, though, Natquik had begun to retie his string of dried fish to put back in his satchel, his mind now elsewhere. When it became obvious that he didn't intend to finish, Miyo gave a disappointed sigh and climbed over the saddle, returning to Tehsa's neck.

"What were you two discussing before I woke up?" Hikoshu started organizing his pack, cramming away the various objects he'd pulled out earlier that morning. If they were almost to Omashu, then he would need to clean up his scattered possessions, anyway.

Natquik answered swiftly, without looking at him. "Eloping." He was now cleaning his bag as well, a thick stack of tied seal jerky in one hand. He sniffed at it with a curious frown, then shoved it back in a fur wrapping. "I think that last rainstorm ruined some food."

"For a waterbender, you did a poor job keeping your stuff dry." The accusation wasn't fair, as Natquik had spent most of the last storm trying to keep the rain out of Tehsa's face. In reality, it was probably more Hikoshu's fault for not watching his gear closely. "And forgive me for saying, but you're not really the marrying kind."

Natquik grinned at both gests. "Well, I would've been fine just skipping the wedding, but Miyo insisted on a ceremony, and you know how she is…" Then, sniffing at a small pouch, he added, "Smell this and tell me what you think."

He looked prepared to toss it, so Hikoshu leaned across the saddle quickly to grab it from his hand. Throwing anything into the air while on a bison was usually a bad idea, and more mindful of plummeting objects, Hikoshu seemed to remember that while Natquik never did.

The contents were pungent—probably tundra sedge, though he couldn't tell without tasting it. Shrugging, he handed it back.

"All Water Tribe food smells rotten to me."

Natquik laughed as he shoved it in his pack. "Weak-stomach lava-swimmer."

"Skin-wearing snow-sucker."

"Fire-breathing warmonger."

"Nature-loving ice-savage."

The insults probably could have continued quite pleasantly, but Miyo took the opportunity to look over the saddle with an unhappy glower. "You're both horrible. Stop that."

They stared innocently back.

"We're just having fun," said Natquik, chastised. Miyo didn't seem to buy the excuse.

"Omashu's up ahead. Just cut it out until we get there."

Silence set in after that. His satchel now lodged behind his back, Hikoshu didn't have much to do other than watch Natquik finish up his own inventory, wrapping and rewrapping various bone, leather, and stone tools, checking string and blades. Honestly, he'd packed like they would be stuck in the wilderness for weeks: fishing hooks, a hammer stone, a hand ax—everything he could possibly need. The result was a heavy pack which Hikoshu wondered how anyone could carry, let alone the lean waterbender.

He was still admiring Natquik's artful packing abilities when the air changed. Or, rather, something about the air changed. It wasn't a physical difference—the sky was still clear, interrupted with the occasional thin cloud, and the wind still whistled between Tehsa's legs. But there was something that made the hair on his neck rise, and suspiciously, he crawled toward the front of the saddle.

Hikoshu had to force himself to look over the lip, where he saw Miyo's back, superimposed on an immense mountain range made golden by the afternoon sun. The jarring scene almost made him recoil, but he swallowed and cleared his throat.

"Everything all right, Miyo?" He couldn't really explain how he knew it wasn't. Just one of the Avatar things, he supposed. But the gentle drop in her shoulders and the bend of her head told him his instincts were right. "Want to talk about it?"

"Not really, no." She never wanted to talk about what was bothering her. Not unless she thought it should be bothering him, too. "Omashu's just ahead."

He didn't see anything but yellow mountains. Large, yellow mountains, whose sharp peaks stuck in the sky like spikes. It was a harsh landscape, hardly something anyone would want to make a home.

"Can you find the bison point?" They were landing platforms designed specifically for air bison and present in nearly every major city of the world. Surely Omashu had one.

"No." The somber note immediately hinted at what was on her mind. "I'm looking." She hadn't turned toward him the entire time, her robes nearly hidden under a blanket of brown hair that stirred with the wind.

"You don't know where it is?" Hikoshu asked. Miyo didn't say anything, which was enough of an answer for him. "You've never been here before."

"No, I've been here." She was defensive, her shoulders abruptly straightening. "Just not in a very long time."

"Why not?" Another unhappy pause, and he scanned his memory for a possible reason. "Is it the relocation efforts?" Still silence. Hikoshu figured he'd just stumbled on the truth.

Omashu had been trying for years to relocate the plains Nomads—the Air Nomads who could not bend and who therefore did not live in the temples. Still nomadic, they inhabited the steppes of the southeastern Earth continent with their herds, having as little to do with the city-states as the sand tribes. Yet the land they used was rich with resources, and of exceptional value to a large city like Omashu.

"They stopped all talks on the matter last year," Miyo finally said, her voice low enough that he almost lost it in the wind. "The Southern Air Temple's been trying to make them listen. They keep proposing peaceful resolutions—maybe move the bands further east. But Omashu just wants more land, and the bands are now fighting amongst themselves over range."

"So no Air Nomads are going to Omashu now?" He made his voice gentler, as well, and she finally glanced back at him. Her brow was worried, dark with troubled thoughts.

"It's a bad sign when even the Air Nomads won't go somewhere, Hikoshu."

He would've reached forward to lay a comforting hand on her shoulder, but any movement out of the saddle made him dizzy. So he managed the most encouraging smile he could.

"The bison point's still there."

She returned the smile wanly, then pointed toward one of the cone-shaped mountains. "That's Omashu."

It was hard to focus on the horizon without his head spinning. But after a few unsettling moments, he realized there were features on the mountainside that could hardly be natural. Sharp angles and green tiles and expansive arches. It then dawned on him the city _was_ the mountain.

The city blended so seamlessly with the range that he would have missed it had he not been searching. Yet even knowing where to look, Hikoshu had some difficulty distinguishing its fine details. Narrow buildings were stacked neatly one on top of the other, staggered such that the city itself rose like an enormous pyramid complex. There were four distinct peaks of varying heights within its confines, and running across them, long, sweeping chutes lined the city from its highest point to the immense wall that surrounded its base.

The city was impenetrable, standing above a bottomless chasm shrouded in mist and fed by only one, slender land bridge. There was no way to enter the city—and no way to leave, as even beyond the chasm, miles of jagged mountains blocked passage to the plains.

"How does it sustain itself?" He asked the question almost breathlessly, as the sight was rather breathtaking.

Natquik sidled up next to him and shrugged. "Rob surrounding lands of their resources and subjugate the native people?" In response, Miyo shot him an unhappy frown of agreement. "Wow." He gave a short whistle. "That's quite a sight."

Certainly nothing like what they had in the Fire Nation, where the capital sprawled across most of the island. Or the North Pole, where the city was a natural part of the tundra. In fact, it more closely resembled the Air Temples to him, though the towers of the Temples were far more inviting and graceful. Omashu, on the other hand, seemed like it wanted to shut everything out.

It now loomed in front of them like a gargantuan monster, and a thousand misty tendrils of smoke wrapped around the arches that supported the chutes. Even from that distance, Hikoshu could smell smelting fires and blacksmith shops. Scents that reminded him too painfully of home.

"I think there's a bison point behind the palace," Miyo finally said. "You might want to hide, Hikoshu. We'll be going down soon."

Sighing, he retreated to the back of the saddle.

When they landed soon afterward, the city had morphed into a single massive building, so large that it consumed the whole of the tallest peak. Hikoshu knew that somewhere below them was the rest of the city, and as he tumbled onto the stone platform, he made sure to keep Tehsa between him and the outlook.

He couldn't really save himself from the view, however, as the bison point was open to air on every side except the one just in front of him. Marked with the Air Nomads sigil, the platform stuck out over space, while sky and mountains framed the horizon like an elaborate mural. Beyond the steep drop-off, the carefully-stacked, green-roofed buildings swept toward the chasm, and he knew with certainty that if he tried to look, he might very well fall from the vertigo.

Miyo prevented that, though, by firmly grabbing his arm and directing him back toward the building. On the way, she spared Tehsa a reassuring pat, murmuring for her to wait, and propped her staff against her neck.

The gate in front of them actually formed a wall of the palace complex itself, rather than a separate protection wall. As they moved toward the cream-colored stone, marked with two sentry windows, Hikoshu realized that they must already be within the compound of the palace, the bison point placed in a protective nook away from the city below.

They stopped before the stretch of stone, and a head appeared in one of the windows. The man's face was lost under the rim of his wide green helm.

"Who's with you, airbender?"

"The Avatar and a representative of the Southern Water Tribe," she said forcefully. Movement to the left caught his eye, where he noticed the window on the other side of the gate. There'd been someone standing in it, though the flash of green was now gone.

If Hikoshu and Natquik had been alone, he was pretty sure the guard would've asked him to prove their identities. But the word of an airbender was always taken as truth, no matter the claim, and the man vanished so quickly that he wondered if he'd even heard Miyo.

A moment later, the man returned to the window. "Wait here while His Majesty is informed."

"I don't have a good feeling," Hikoshu murmured, his stomach suddenly sinking. The last time he had visited a strange place and waited while the proper authority was informed, that proper authority had nearly killed him.

Miyo shushed him, though, and he looked to Natquik miserably for some sort of support. Yet the waterbender was thoroughly occupied with the vista behind them, paying no attention to the foreboding palace in front of them.

They were alone for quite some time, while Hikoshu's anxiety grew worse and his heightened instincts demanded they be heard. Unfortunately, neither companion seemed to share his concerns, and they didn't jump when the stone groaned open, cracking down the center.

Before them yawned a dark hole—a gaping maw that led into oblivion. Miyo marched resolutely in, staff held at her side, and Natquik followed, his eyes sweeping along the ceiling. Hikoshu trailed behind as he scanned the dark for hidden enemies.

As the door slid shut, he slowly acclimated to the ambient light. The hole was actually a corridor, wide and long and empty of all ornamentation, even decorative molding. Everything about it was _green_. The walls, unlike the outside, were made of a green stone, and the floor was a black marble veined with green, covered in a lighter green, velvety rug. Periodically along the walls, metal brackets held jade-colored lanterns that gave off a hazy green light, which in turn somehow made everything else seem greener.

On the whole, the palace had a disconcerting effect, as if Hikoshu had been swallowed by a large emerald. Noting the strange echoes of his footsteps on the walls versus the silent footfalls of the men behind them, Hikoshu followed his friends down the hallway.

They eventually came to an intersection, at which point more guards appeared to show them the way. Wordlessly, they joined the three similarly-uniformed men. Their wide, conical helms of gold and green lacquered metal sat almost flat on their heads, with leather caps underneath that covered their ears. Over heavy wool robes, dyed the same green as the hallway, they wore lamellar cuirasses and leather belts which held no weapons. Hikoshu supposed they didn't need to, as below the green shin guards, their feet were bare, and the stiff leather gloves were missing the fingers. Though their eyes were hidden under the rims of their helms, they all looked tensed and ready to fight.

The corridor eventually grew wider and taller, with latticed windows set high in its wall. Daylight poured in through the flowery designs, though it didn't do much to change the overwhelmingly verdant atmosphere. Instead, it highlighted dust motes, which broke the green with shades of gold, and threw shadows over the anonymous corners of the hallway.

People then began to appear. Ones that weren't guards, who wore shimmering silk robes as the only distinguishing feature of their sex. The ones whose robes reached their knees had to be men, despite two loose braids that hung down their backs. The women's soft green robes trailed just above the carpet, their hair done up in buns and wide silk ribbon.

As they went by, each of these individuals stopped to stare before rushing away at the guards' frowns. Hikoshu didn't know if they were nobility or courtiers or just extravagantly dressed servants; they all looked the same, no matter their age, and eventually, they were just another blur in the endless world of green.

He felt they had traveled into the very bowels of the palace before they reached the end of the corridors. The court they entered had alcoves in the walls, bearing statues of regally-posed kings far above. They stared down emptily, their expressions lost by distance and darkness.

Directly in front of them were three doors. Two of them, framing the third, stood small and unimpressive, obviously meant for less important people. Yet the third door towered above them, nearly as tall as the corridor they had just left. Hikoshu hadn't seen a portal so large since his days in the Western Air Temple, its wood inlaid with a golden circle, a smaller silver square set in the center. By the time they reached the entryway, some unseen force was tugging the heavy wooden planks open, revealing the room beyond.

This had to be the throne room. Above them, more elaborate latticed windows let in light, which at this time of day left most of the chamber in shadow. To either side, the walls held heavy banners, hanging from ceiling to floor, which bore the symbols of Omashu and the ruling family—the circle-and-square, as well as a shepherd's crook. Between the banners were breaks in the walls, which likely led to the wings where people waited to be seen. Despite the presence of the wings, at least a hundred people still milled around the throne room. They were dressed like the people in the hallways, though Hikoshu thought he saw one or two robed in the plain tunics of commoners.

As they made their way down the heavily embroidered carpet, Hikoshu looked ahead. The wall before them was dominated by the symbol of Omashu, the circle embossed in gold, the square in the center made of silver. Lines engraved in the green stone ran from either side of the circle to the floor, where a dais held by two steps stood. On it was a stone throne, tall-backed and made of hard angles—as uncomfortable-looking as the man who sat on it.

He was middle-aged and rather diminutive, his face wreathed with a glower. His robes were richly embroidered and sewn with thick folds, made of several shades of green silks and a brown mantle that enveloped his shoulders. Yet it didn't cover the leather cuirass he wore, similar to those of his guards, and the combination of finery with simple armor created a strange pairing. Long sleeves of light green draped carelessly over the arms of his chair as he propped his elbows against the throne, one ring-encrusted hand running gently over his head.

His bald head. It was perhaps not the most notable thing about him, but it was the detail that Hikoshu kept returning to. The man's head shone with the muted light of the high-set lanterns, not even tufts above his ears to distract from the glaring fact that he was as bald as an Air Monk. In contrast, he wore a black goatee that hung to his chest, knotted at the bottom around a thin, golden bar. From his throne, he watched them with dull eyes, deep purple outlining the lids either in fatigue or illness.

All of the room's occupants had stopped talking the moment they entered the room, and when they realized how unique this particular group was, all movement stopped, too. Yet as soon as they passed by, each one of the silk-laden courtiers began whispering. By the time they'd reached the other end of the room, the entire hall echoed with the murmuring.

"Sir," said one of their escorts, going to both knees before the man on the throne as he bowed his head, "the Avatar has come to see you."

The reaction in the room was instantaneous with this declaration. The murmuring stopped, replaced with the sound of rustling silk and the collective knocking of knees. When Hikoshu turned to see what had happened, there was no one standing—every man and woman was now on the floor, their heads to the marble.

Natquik was as equally stunned as he, circling on his heel with apparent intimidation. When he caught Hikoshu's eyes, he flashed him an uncertain frown, mirroring his feelings. Though Hikoshu had been a recipient of mass genuflection in the past, no one had bowed before him in years. It simply wasn't done in the Water Tribes.

"Master Avatar." The booming voice of King Du Gong was far more powerful than he actually looked, and the short man roused himself enough to stand, his silks spilling out onto the stone. "It is an honor to meet you. Omashu welcomes you with open arms." Then he was also on the floor, his head bent to the dais in the same reverent fashion.

Hikoshu had to work hard to swallow back a laugh. The absurdity of the scene was too much for him, and again, he saw Natquik struggle with the same emotions, his mouth twitching toward a smile. He knew, though, that if his friend broke, he would too, so he turned in desperation to Miyo.

As always, she was the most level-headed of the three.

Miyo hadn't turned to take in the room like they had. Instead, she stood before the throne with as much majesty as any king, her staff planted in front of her, and Hikoshu thought for a moment the Omashu people could all be bowing for her. "The Avatar is honored by your invitation and is pleased to see the King in such good health." Her voice rang out like iron, as commanding as any great leader. Hikoshu knew it was simply the voice of a well-trained Air Nun.

Along with the crowd, Du Gong stood. He then returned to his seat with a friendly smile. "I am in better health than I was ten years ago, Mistress Nun, and I feel stronger everyday." Hikoshu found that hard to believe; though he didn't move like a sick man, his face still seemed haggard, as if he hadn't slept in days. Looking to Natquik, Du Gong continued. "I see that we have a representative from the Water Tribes."

Natquik was a little more versed in politics than he, and he turned back to the throne with a curt nod. "My name is Natquik, nephew of former Lesser Chief Tinnoq, future consort of the Princess of the Northern Water Tribe." He probably should have bowed at that point, but the waterbender just wasn't used to doing that. "And this is Miyo, Nun of the Western Air Temple."

Natquik quite obviously didn't appreciate the fact that Du Gong hadn't yet asked Miyo for her name, waiting until everyone else was introduced first. The slight was small but telling, and Natquik looked ready to engage in an argument if Du Gong was prepared to do the same. Utterly stoic, Miyo didn't react to the now-tense air, and the King merely let his smile fade a bit.

"We are delighted to have representatives from the Air and Water nations alike, and we invite you to stay with us." He lifted a hand, which signaled one of their escorts to step forward. "We'll also arrange a feast in your honor, Avatar."

"While we are flattered by your offer," Miyo began swiftly, before the escort could usher them away, "we can only stay a short while. Master Natquik and I have business to attend to elsewhere." She made no effort to hide how eager she was to leave. "In addition, the Avatar has important issues to discuss with you, as I'm sure you with him."

Du Gong's smile faltered into an unpleasant line. "Of course. But, please, stay for an evening to honor your host. We shall discuss 'important issues' once you are well rested."

Was this how introductions to royalty were supposed to happen? A couple of words of greeting, only to be whisked off to some uninhabited part of the building? Hikoshu had no experience with politics, let alone politicians, so he looked to Miyo for guidance. She was clearly irritated by the King's insistence, but gave a sharp nod of acknowledgment.

"Thank your for your hospitality, Your Majesty."

Hikoshu hadn't spoken for the length of the audience, but no one seemed to notice. Perhaps he wasn't meant to speak, as their escorts began to lead them toward the still-open doors. Much to his surprise, the guards—two both in front and behind—walked backwards from the throne, their heads still bowed. Though the same custom was used when in the presence of the Fire Lord, Hikoshu hadn't suspected that such a practice would extend beyond the boundaries of his home.

Automatically, he started to do the same, only to be stopped by Miyo's hand on his elbow. "Just walk forward," she whispered, her fingers wrapped gently around his arm. "You're the Avatar."

Perhaps he was, but that didn't make him feel any more comfortable. Now shoved back into a position of prestige and power, Hikoshu suddenly realized how much he'd taken for granted the Water Tribes' disinterest in titles. And how much he regretted not learning how to deal with international politics sooner. Forcing himself not to hunch his shoulders, he stuck close to Miyo and tried hard to look like he belonged.

Yet there was something far more disturbing about those emerald hallways they re-entered than the feel of garish pomp or shallow rituals. Hikoshu supposed it was his instincts, as usual, telling him to keep on his guard. And though he couldn't guess what dangers Omashu could hold when it seemed the worst was over, he still regarded the shadows closely.

He still waited for unseen enemies.

* * *

**A/N: **As always, it's unbeta'd, so as always, reviews are _really _appreciated. Believe me, you all can only make it better!


	15. Ch 14: The Allure of Hot Baths and Gold

**Chapter 14 - The Allure of Hot Baths and Gold**

* * *

In the nondescript halls of Omashu, Hikoshu was separated from his friends rather abruptly, one soldier requesting that he follow him while the other escorts continued into another branch. He threw Miyo a doubtful look, but she just gestured for him to go. After that, he was alone.

The guard was courteous, though quiet. They were about the same age, and the man's expression was pleasant and amiable enough that Hikoshu felt compelled to start a conversation. Yet the moment he asked what life was like in Omashu, the soldier jelly-clammed up as if he were betraying national secrets. All he could get was that the man's name was Pong, and he enjoyed mudball.

His designated room must have been in the fancier section of the palace, as the green of the corridors eventually transformed into a deep brown, very nearly a dark red. So dark that the crystal lanterns barely touched the thick carpet under their feet. The carpet ended just before they entered the final hallway, lined with infrequent doors on the left and a wall of airy windows on the right. The latter were shuttered against the cold and the mountain-lined vista, daylight slipping through thin cracks. Occasionally a breeze rattled the wood, but otherwise the hall was silent, empty of any signs of life.

The guard opened one of those doors, letting him into a room which was easily the largest he'd ever been given. The antechamber itself could have held his own ice hut and possibly two more, and the bedroom was almost the same size. The furnishings were ample and lavish: various couches upholstered with animal hide, dyed such a striking red that they looked practically new; desks and chairs and a table made of rich wood that put off a heady smell, like fresh pine. But they were all lacquered and decorated with gold gilt, so that he imagined the smell must have come from the vases filled with yellow snow-roses and dishes of fruit.

After the guard left him there, he stood for several long moments, unsure if he should touch anything. Finally, though, suffocating in the heavy perfumes, he crossed the rug-covered floors to a wall of latticed windows and pulled open two narrow, ornately carved doors.

He found a garden on the other side. An artistically crafted garden, with full blooms of autumn flowers and twisted, drooping trees crowned in showers of golden leaves. Though hemmed in on all sides by a shaded veranda, the garden still held an aura of a half-tamed landscape, rocky outcroppings and an unseen pond creating the illusion of nature.

Overwhelmed, he shut the doors and wandered into the bedroom. An enormous, green-silk bed dominated the chamber, and with layers of gauzy curtains enveloping it, it could have been a room unto itself. But he was too exhausted to be daunted anymore, so he pulled off his coat and collapsed into a mattress made of clouds and koala-lambs.

A servant woke him at one point with her insistent knocking, and when he opened the anteroom door, she scurried in with a tray of food that smelled better than anything he'd eaten in years. A flurry of green and white robes, the young woman didn't talk, barely answering his questions as she prepared the table for him. He didn't even know her name by the time she left. The food, at least, was amazing. He just couldn't remember what he ate, for as soon as he finished, he was asleep again. Days of unrelenting travel and a stomach full of rich food was too much of a match for his anxiety over Omashu, and he succumbed to sleep much more quickly the second time.

That was the night the dreams began.

Hikoshu was in the lake, the familiar panic creeping up his throat like acid. Above him was a solid sheet of ice, unbroken, as his immaterial hands clawed for some sort of hold—his distinctly feminine hands, the hands of a stranger, which were silhouetted against the light that filtered through the ice. Occasionally, a shadow above him would flit past, plunging him into darkness, but just as quickly it would move on, and once more the world glowed a muted green.

The darkness that scared him the most lay just below him; though he couldn't see it, Hikoshu could feel its presence, lurking and vast. _Hold still_, a woman's voice whispered, and she most certainly feared the darkness as much as he. She knew what swam inside those depths—she felt it boiling under her, waiting for her to surrender. _Hold still…_

But those words weren't just for what lay below. She whispered them to the surface, as well, and Hikoshu realized that those swift shadows he had mistaken for clouds were actually the silhouettes of men, sprinting across the ice. Dozens of men, whose hazy shapes gave no hint to their identities, but whose presence terrified her just as much as that of the darkness.

_Hold still_…

Hikoshu couldn't have held on. The cold was too eviscerating, the fear too consuming. His muscles—her muscles—weakened so very slowly, and her nails didn't dig deep enough to maintain her hold. At odds with the raw panic that seized him, Hikoshu watched as the ice floated languidly away. As _he _floated away, and below, the darkness swelled upward like a waking beast…

Hikoshu awoke in a cold sweat. The sheets under him were drenched and the enclosed space stifling, possibly from him firebending in his sleep. No fabric was singed or charred, however, which meant he had fortunately only raised his body temperature. Yet to lose control even that much while asleep was embarrassing, and momentarily, he was distracted from the anxiety that still pressed in on him like a snow drift. Wiping the sweat from his face, he pushed open one of the canopy curtains.

The room was still dark, but streaks of blue light spilling through the window shutters hinted that morning had already come. His Water Tribe coat, which he'd tossed onto a chair, was now missing. The unexplained absence of his parka put him on edge, and abruptly, his anxiety found new purchase in the forefront of his mind.

His sudden vigilance might have been what brought to his attention the muffled sounds of someone else moving in the anteroom. The sound of footsteps, strangely loud against the soft weft of the carpet.

A chill seized him, the hair rising along his arms as sweat again broke out on his neck. Tumbling gracefully from the bed, Hikoshu crouched low and stole across the room, intent to ambush the spirit while he could. With a deep breath beside the tall red-elm door, he paused to collect himself. Then, throwing it open, he pounced into a firebending stance and gave a shout.

The little servant girl from the day before immediately yelped. Fortunately, she'd already laid out his breakfast; otherwise, he would've been eating half of it off the floor. Frozen beside the sturdy table, her hands grabbing at her breast, she stared at him with wide, green eyes. Her petite mouth, set yesterday in an indifferent line, now hung open in silent horror.

"Sorry," Hikoshu muttered, quickly retreating to his room in order to dress. Hopefully she didn't catch his blush in the process.

When he returned, the servant was still setting up breakfast. Apparently, while he was gone, the girl had found more food. Now there were various plates that he couldn't finish by himself, placed meticulously across the table. Hikoshu watched the servant as she worked, noting how her outer white robe fit poorly over the inner green layer, as if she wore one size too large. Even the slim-fitting hat was too big for her, the heavy circle emblem of Omashu tugging it down over her eyes as she leaned across the table. Yet despite the drawbacks of the likely standard livery, she was an attractive girl, not much younger than he.

After the awkward silence became too unbearable, he tried conversation again. Perhaps seeing him half-naked had dispelled any formality between them, for she was far more amenable now to telling him her name—Mei-li. She even smiled prettily for him, answering his questions as she set the table. His coat was being washed. The others were in different wings. The king was arranging a feast in his honor later that evening, and he should enjoy his room until then.

She became comfortable enough to suggest he take a bath, wrinkling her nose as he walked by her. He asked where those were, and she said she'd show him once he was done with breakfast. If he needed anything else, she'd be back within an hour.

By the time she left, she was giggling at his jokes and shooting him bashful glances, which made him feel a lot less lonely.

When he'd had his fill of breakfast—a rich assortment of poached eggs, spiced meat, and fried breads, none of which he recognized except as 'delicious'—Hikoshu was much more at ease with Omashu, his earlier anxiety almost forgotten. Good food and some friendly company did wonders for his nerves, and he took to exploring the room while he waited for Mei-li to return.

Though large, the chamber contained little more than what he'd already seen. Tiles depicting lotus flowers graced the ceiling and tapestries that depicted mythical battles covered the brownstone walls. They were probably from some Earth Kingdom wars he didn't know about, though in one tapestry, he noticed a figure that looked vaguely familiar. The woman was wreathed in blue, much like the Water Tribes, and stood in the center of two opposing armies. Hikoshu was examining this more carefully when someone knocked at the door.

He opened it to find Miyo. She looked neither more nor less rested as she entered, and she didn't look any cleaner, her orange habit still reeking faintly of bison and long travel. As she stepped to the side to slip off her shoes, Natquik came in behind her.

"So they gave you your own house?" he asked, stunned, as he gazed about the room. His coat was also missing, leaving him in the worn blue wool of his Water Tribe robes, and unlike Miyo, he didn't bother to tug off his boots. Curiously, he pulled open desk drawers, ducking to look inside.

"They didn't put you two in a barn, did they?" Hikoshu said as he turned back to Miyo, who was examining his room with a little less enthusiasm than Natquik. She shook her head.

"Our rooms just aren't quite as…big."

"Putting it mildly." Natquik had now reached the door to the garden, which he carefully cracked open. Peeking out, he twisted his water skin toward his back, letting the yellow bladder rest behind his hip. "The bed's pretty nice, though." He then pulled his head back into the room. "They gave you a garden, too?"

"Natquik found me, then we both came here." Miyo approached Hikoshu's side, watching the waterbender's explorations as she folded her arms in her copious sleeves. "He certainly knows his way around."

"He's got a good grasp on directions."

"Hey, not bad." Natquik's words were muffled, and Hikoshu glanced back to see him finishing off what was left of his eggs. "Meat's a little chewy."

"Please, help yourself," he said sarcastically, which was an unnecessary invitation as Natquik grabbed one of the yeast rolls and headed for the bedroom.

"So I guess they've been treating you well?" Miyo asked, her voice dry, and he gave her a grin.

"They haven't dressed me in gold yet, but I can't complain."

"Don't let it go to your head, Master Avatar." She moved in front of him and tugged at his own blue robes. "They do need to put you in some new clothes, though."

"What's wrong with these?" He frowned, holding out his arms to inspect them. The cloth wrapped around his wrists, designed to keep out snow and cold, had once been white. Now it was an unpleasant gray, and he imagined that the rest of him just didn't show dirt as well. "They just need a good washing."

"And so do you." She wrinkled her nose, though it didn't look as cute on her as it had on Mei-li, and rubbed his cheek. "You need to shave, too."

At that moment, there was a hesitant knock at the door which, much to his dismay, Hikoshu realized that Natquik had left open. As if unconsciously summoned, Mei-li now stood in the entryway, watching Miyo with some hesitancy. Quelling his frustration over her bad timing, Hikoshu stepped quickly away from the nun. Yet Mei-li had again become shy, and she rushed in with her head bowed to collect his dishes.

Natquik took that moment to come out of the bedroom, and his appearance startled Mei-li so badly that she squeaked and dropped a silver dish on the floor. He glanced in confusion from her to Hikoshu, a roll tucked in his mouth.

Gathering the final dish onto her tray of platters, Mei-li studiously avoided Hikoshu's gaze. He had to stop her with a hand on her arm as she rushed for the door. "Mei-li, thank you for all of your help, but my companions need to have a word with me. Maybe, though, you'd want to show me around a little later?" Mei-li must have caught his sincerity, for she smiled and nodded with something close to her former humor. The next moment, she was gone.

Miyo slowly turned from the door, her eyebrows arched high enough that they shortened her arrow. "Who was that?"

"No one," Hikoshu said hurriedly. Natquik scoffed as he gave up his investigations.

"Well, that's a no one I'd like to know, then." His response earned a severe look from Miyo, and he held his hands up defensively. "I'm just saying she's an attractive girl!" That didn't diminish her glare. "For Hikoshu!"

At least she stopped glaring when she turned her attention back to him. "Hikoshu, you can't do anything with the servants. It's below your station."

"My station?" He couldn't help the ridicule that crept into his voice. "Since when do Air Nomads believe in stations?"

"Maybe not Air Nomads, but _Avatars_ should." She seemed very serious now as she held his gaze intensely. "That poor girl isn't interested in you. She's just dazzled by your fame."

Her unintended insult cracked through the air like lightning, rendering Hikoshu speechless. Only Natquik could break the sudden silence, his low whistle filling the void.

"That was cruel, Miyo."

The color drained from her face as she looked to Natquik, and the unspoken meaning of her words finally registered. "Oh, no, I didn't mean it like that."

"Of course you did." Hikoshu tried hard not to sound bitter. "You meant that I can't trust any woman to be genuinely interested in me."

"I meant that you can't trust any of _these_ women to be interested in you." Miyo dropped her voice into an angry hiss, and her expression filled with disgust. "You can't trust anyone here."

"_You_ can't trust anyone here," he countered, and immediately wished he hadn't. His pride might've been wounded, but she didn't deserve such an attack. How could he blame her for her mistrust when so much had happened to her people at the hands of Omashu? The hurt in her eyes said just as much. "I'm sorry, that was uncalled for."

She thrust a hand up sharply to stop him and spun on her heel for the door. "I'll talk to you later." Roughly, she tugged on her shoes, one hand holding the wall for support. "You better find some clothes." Then, yanking the door open, she stepped outside and slammed it behind her.

"If it makes you feel any better," Natquik said, right behind his shoulder, "I would've not hesitated to find a dark corner with that servant-girl."

"Actually, that just makes me feel weird." Hikoshu let his anger go with a sigh as he turned toward the waterbender. "You know how to play Pai Sho? They have a nice set here." It wasn't his first fight with Miyo, and by the afternoon, it'd probably be forgotten.

Probably.

Mei-li eventually returned, smiling sweetly as she offered to show him to the baths. Yet now his thoughts of her were tinged with uncertainty, and Hikoshu feared his own smile wasn't quite as enthusiastic as before. Natquik, who still hung around his room, decided not to join him, as he apparently didn't understand the concept of heated tubs and fragrant oils. He was used to faster baths that didn't involve soaking, and expressed no interest in getting used to anything else, either. So he retired to his own room with a promise that he would be clean at some point.

Hikoshu, on the other hand, forgot all about his fight with Miyo while in the hot spas. Except for infrequent firebending at the South Pole, he hadn't had a warm bath in years. Now, he luxuriated in the feel of the water, its heat relaxing his muscles and relieving a week's worth of soreness. He also impressed a few of the white-haired servant women with his waterbending, which was also a nice change. No one was really awed by waterbenders in a culture full of them.

By the time he returned to his room, clean and dressed in a simple cotton robe, his lunch had already been served. So he enjoyed a meal of egg noodles and more spicy meat—this time with sauce—before discovering his Water Tribe clothes, washed, pressed, and folded on his bed. Next to those was another set of robes, made of fine red silk and golden embroidering. He imagined they were for the feast tonight, and, afraid of somehow ruining the finery, he put off wearing them until later.

Miyo showed up that afternoon, looking somewhat rested as well. Her hairline had been shaved back neatly to reveal more of her arrow, and her hair was braided loosely below her shoulder blades in formal airbender style. Though she still wore the same billowing orange robes, they had been washed and repaired at some point, the previous tears in her shawl now invisible.

She also looked rather remorseful as she ducked into the room, staff in hand. "Hikoshu, I'm sorry. I think I'm just…" she trailed off with a sigh, refusing to meet his eyes while she removed her shoes. "I think I'm worried about leaving you. Who's going to protect you when Natquik and I are gone?"

"Miyo, don't worry." He touched her shoulder, forcing her to look up at him. "If I can handle being tortured and stabbed to death, I think I can handle Omashu."

The recollection of his ordeal so many years ago made her eyes narrow sadly, and she wrapped him in a tight hug. Then all was forgiven, as if they had never fought to begin with.

She stayed in his room for the remainder of the afternoon, playing a couple of games of Pai Sho with him, teasing him on his apparent appreciation of the hot spas.

"If you hadn't had a decent bath in years, you'd appreciate it, too," he protested from his spot on the ground as she pulled up a chair behind him. Unconvinced, she folded her legs under her and produced a bronze comb from her sash.

"Have you forgotten all the Air Nomads' lessons already?" Her words were laced with a grin. "Hot baths are an attachment!" Then she began—painfully—to fix his hair. He couldn't guess what was wrong with his usual topknot, but Miyo rarely thought he looked presentable enough on his own. "In fact, all of this is attachment. So much pointless material wealth..."

He grunted half out of agreement, half out of pain. But in reality, he wasn't so sure if he agreed. What could possibly be wrong with hot baths, soft beds, and good meals?

About that time, Natquik showed up, entering without knocking. He seemed harried, rubbing at his jaw as he pushed the door shut with his foot. "Sorry I'm late." Hikoshu noted then that the sun was setting outside, the world a dark blue beyond the cracked garden door. Around them, the room glowed under lanterns set high on the walls.

"You look a lot nicer," Miyo said above his head, which was true. Natquik still wore his blue robes, though they'd been washed since that morning, and he'd managed to shave. His hair was tied back just above the nape of his neck, where it separated into four braided locks, each ending with an elaborate turquoise bead. Scratching at his copper-bone collar self-consciously, he moved into the room.

"They stole my clothes." That would explain why he looked so uncomfortable. "They wanted me to put on some ridiculous tribal get-up, but I told them I'd wait until mine came back."

"They stole your clothes?" Hikoshu asked incredulously as Miyo swallowed a laugh. "How did they do that? Wouldn't they have to get you out of them first?"

Natquik never blushed. He was just one of those people who had no shame. But for some reason—perhaps a trick of the light—he looked like he was. Instead of answering, he frowned at Hikoshu.

"What are you doing on the ground?"

"Wait, how _did_ you lose your clothes?" Miyo wasn't letting the subject go so easily. Predicting that she was done with him, Hikoshu sighed and airbended himself to his feet. From the feel of it, she'd just put another topknot in his hair, but he wouldn't know until he found a mirror.

Natquik rubbed his neck in embarrassment as Hikoshu moved to the next room. Before he disappeared, he heard the waterbender say, quite stupidly, "Well, this girl was telling me to take them off, no explanation…"

When he re-entered the anteroom, now made up like an Earth Kingdom prince, Natquik was still scrambling for excuses while Miyo stood several feet away from him and stared so fiercely that he wondered if he should leave again.

"…wasn't like I was going to do anything. But, honestly, can you blame me?" She could. And she did. Hikoshu cleared his throat to get their attention, sparing Natquik from digging himself deeper. Miyo slowly turned her glare on him, and he thought perhaps he'd made a mistake.

"Well? How do I look?"

She dropped her angry frown with an abrupt laugh, clapping her hand to her mouth as if to keep it from escaping. Now it was his turn to be self-conscious as she strode across the room.

"This is on backwards. Pull your arms out." She untied the embroidered sash and forced him to tuck his arms inside the outer garment, made whole-cloth from white patterned silk. Then, slinging the belt over her shoulder, she twisted the garment around so that the low triangular cut of the neck faced forward rather than back. She then pulled at the inner red-silk robes underneath. "The lapels are the wrong direction. They wrap the other way. And the belt ties in the back, not to your left."

"Well, they shouldn't make things like this so complicated," he muttered as he tried to fix the lapels without taking off the whole outfit. She beamed at him in response, which almost made him scowl.

"It's difficult because it's considered an art form. Only the most educated can wear it properly. Particularly those with servants to help."

Perhaps only the most educated could put those robes on, but he was fortunate to have Miyo. Who, even if she wasn't versed in all national clothing, could recognize fashion styles well enough to fake it. She prodded and pulled at him while Natquik made mocking gestures behind her, up until Hikoshu finally laughed and she rounded on him. But she was done at that point, and soon after, Mei-li tapped on the door to interrupt the pleasant mood of the room. She then graciously corrected the mistakes on his costume that Miyo hadn't caught.

"Will you be working the feast tonight?" Hikoshu murmured while she rolled and flattened his wide sleeves. Throwing him a timid half-smile, she moved from one wrist to the other.

"I might be, Avatar." The coy response made him smile, and he studiously avoided looking to Miyo to see her reaction. Even if she might've been right, he wanted to pretend for a little while that she wasn't.

At least for one party.

**xxXxxxXxxXxxxXxx**

As with everything else, the room which housed the party was large and spacious. It probably would've been tiresomely green like the rest of the palace, if it weren't for the fact that even their glowing rocks couldn't light the whole chamber. Instead, amber-colored lanterns and candles hung from the ceiling in bunches, chains suspending them high above the partygoers.

Despite the extravagant chandeliers, Hikoshu couldn't make out much of the room itself, as there had to be hundreds of people in attendance. They all wore an array of colors ranging from forest green to a pale kelp green, with the occasional detractor dressed in white or yellow or blue. The clothing was made almost entirely of silk, which rippled like water and shimmered so brightly that the crowd could've lit the room on its own.

The people milled and mingled as Hikoshu entered, though their activities stopped briefly as a man with a tall black hat, pierced by a bronze bar, announced his arrival at the door. Just as quickly, they resumed their chatter, a low-pitched collective murmur that nearly drowned out the festive music that emanated from the corners of the room.

Natquik and Miyo were behind him, though they didn't get the same announcement. Unoffended, Miyo simply grabbed his arm, yanking him close so that he could hear her soft voice.

"Stay by me, Hikoshu. This is a political dinner more than it is a party."

"You don't trust me to handle a political dinner?"

A level look was the only answer he received. Abruptly she turned with a serene smile toward an approaching couple, her demeanor transforming to that of a calm, collected Air Nun. Hikoshu mimicked her reaction, and they brightened considerably at the welcoming response.

Master Kwan and his wife. The man was middle-aged, his receding hairline accentuated by a round black hat, his drab yellow robes covering a bulging girth. His wife was much smaller, nearly swallowed under his arm, and she blinked thin eyes up at him affectionately. Occasionally, she dabbed at his cheek with a kerchief as if she'd found something in his beard, but only when she obviously thought he was talking too much.

And he talked a lot. A merchant out of the Misty District—not that Hikoshu knew where that was—Master Kwan had made his fortune selling lumber salvaged from a ship graveyard. He was in Omashu right now to petition the king for quarter against a rival merchant who had begun importing wood from the Northwest Territory—had Hikoshu heard about that? No? Well, now that the port city of Taku had signed a trade agreement with Omashu, they could harvest trees from the—at which point, Master Kwan's wife interrupted to tell him about their son. Yes, a son about his age. He studied with some of the Fire Sages a few years back. Had Hikoshu met him? He was a prodigy earthbender. Surely, Hikoshu knew about him.

Hikoshu just nodded and shook his head when appropriate. Miyo did most of the talking, and she handled it far more adeptly than he would've. Yes, the Avatar understood their concerns. No, he hadn't heard about the trade agreements, but Omashu had been working with Taku for years. That was wonderful to hear about their son—he was surely a great source of pride for their family.

When they finally left, Hikoshu slumped his shoulders in exhaustion, as if he'd single-handedly supported the conversation himself. Even though he'd actually stood there dumbly, the mere act of keeping up with the dialogue had drained him of energy. Unfortunately, his respite was short-lived, and Miyo nudged him sharply in the ribs as another couple drifted close.

The evening rolled on just like that. He eventually lost track of the names, then the faces. These people all had some sort of problem over which they were petitioning the king, and that they thought it was extremely important he know about. Master Lee disagreed with his neighbor on water rights regarding his fiefs. Mistress Sun was trying to get her son out of military service because of his hurt foot. Master Ino wanted to know if Hikoshu had met his lovely daughter yet.

Miyo took every complaint seriously, which made it look like he was taking it seriously, and he was grateful for her help. Each person was answered with the same response: that King Du Gong's judgments were fair and Hikoshu was sympathetic to their plights. Despite its vague nature, the response somehow mollified them, and they all left the conversation more pleased than they'd arrived.

"Worst party I've ever been to," Hikoshu grumbled after some Third District noble departed, and snatched a rice cookie from a passing servant's tray. It was the first thing he'd had to eat all night, which he munched on without even tasting.

"I told you, it's a political dinner." Miyo's eyes scanned the crowd, as if searching out someone in the gathered groups. "When you have a bunch of nobles and politicians together in a room, it's never just a party."

"And how did you get so good at politics?" He elbowed her lightly, giving her a grin. She glanced back at him with absentminded surprise.

"I'm not good at politics. I'm just not bad at them like you." Immediately, she went back to her fruitless search. "Have you seen Natquik?"

No, he hadn't. After they'd been engaged by the first patrons, Natquik had disappeared into the crowd without even saying goodbye.

"I'm sure he's fine. I haven't heard anyone screaming, anyway."

"Still…" She hesitated, then brushed crumbs off of his shoulder. "I'm going to find him. You stay out of trouble while I'm gone."

"Wait!" Hikoshu nearly choked on his cookie, seizing her arm. "What about me?"

"They're just noblemen. Nod and tell them you understand where they're coming from. And try not to agree too much." She gave him a suffering look before she pulled out of his grasp and slipped into the crowd.

Suddenly, he felt very ungainly, as if someone had stuck a cabbage on his head and painted his face bright purple. He fought back the urge to hide under the long stone tables, stacked with food and placed against the walls. He also resisted the urge to hide close to the musicians, where people were dancing instead of talking. Yet with every plan he settled on, Hikoshu abandoned it moments later; no matter what he did, he was certain he would just stand out more.

"You look a little unhappy." The sound of that voice jarred him so violently that his head snapped up, his hair standing on end. Yet he calmed considerably once he noticed that the voice came from a rather petite young woman just beside him, who gazed up at him from behind a painted fan.

"I understand where you're coming from, and I sympathize," he said automatically, then winced at how silly he must've sounded. The girl seemed to agree, one draw-in eyebrow arching daintily. He couldn't see all of her face, hidden as it was by the fan, and what was visible was covered in so much white make-up that the only things natural about her were her kohl-lined eyes. Those were big and brown. And very pretty.

"I don't have anything to talk to you about," she said with a delicate voice, tiny jeweled trinkets dangling from her elaborate headdress. "I just thought you might want it to look like I do. To give you a break from talking to anyone else."

"So no story about your brother's friend's cousin's great business venture?" She shook her head. "Wonderful. Thank you." He tried not to let his shoulders sag in relief.

"You're not one for politics, are you?" The statement itself was innocuous, but the way she said it stirred some old memory that he couldn't quite place. Only the feeling of it returned—a bad feeling, colored with resentment or offense. Yet the thought was fleeting, and he gave her a lopsided smile.

"Not really, no. A lot of talking around things, without really talking _about_ things."

That made her laugh a charming laugh, like chimes, and it sounded so strangely familiar that it sent a shiver through his back. What could it be? Did she remind him of Mayami?

"That's a pretty good summary," she murmured, without noticing his momentary déja-vu. "I guess we're lucky we like the scenery so much; that's about all we get to see in the circles we walk." Hikoshu would've thought she was teasing him, but there was no teasing in her voice. Instead, her eyes lit up brilliantly in a way that made the back of his neck itch with that odd sense of familiarity.

"What's your name?"

He couldn't see her smile—just the fine crinkling of her eyes above the fan. "Does Kua Mei sound like a nice one?" Kua Mei—_fascinating beauty. _Now she _was_ teasing him, but he actually kind of enjoyed it, a broad grin spreading across his face.

"Sounds like a fitting one."

Silence set in as her eyes crinkled even more in delight, and they stared at each other for what seemed ages. He actually enjoyed that, too, and was disappointed when a voice interrupted them from the entryway.

"His Royal Majesty, King Du Gong!" The room went quiet again, just as it had for Hikoshu when he first entered. He glanced away to watch the stirring of noblemen around him, their murmurs increasing in volume until the dull roar of conversation recommenced.

When he turned back to the mysterious Kua Mei, she was gone.

**xxXxxxXxxXxxxXxx**

Miyo found Natquik about the time the king made his entrance. Though the waterbender should have stood out like a wolfbat in a gazelk herd, she had to search half the room before finally spying him beside one of the buffet tables. He was, naturally, surrounded by a practical harem of girls, their white, painted faces staring up at him with a mixture of awe and coy gentility as he regaled them with some Water Tribe story. As she approached, she heard a couple of them giggle, and that inspired an unrivaled annoyance in her. Trying hard not to fold her arms, she came to a stop behind him.

"…though I'm something of a warrior in my tribe, it also happens that I'm known far and wide for my particular art of waterbending." He was waterbending his drink for them; Miyo could see the liquid dancing along the edge of his silver cup as he twirled a finger, and the girls looked properly impressed. "You see, I can heal just about anything, simply using water."

"But you never could heal that big head of yours." She fought to keep her voice sociable, perhaps even joking, but she knew she sounded bitter. And part of her just didn't care. The girls' eyes swiveled toward her at the same time, their expressions shifting from awe to confusion. Natquik didn't miss a beat, his drink returning to his cup as he, too, turned to her.

"Hey, Miyo. I see you got away from Hikoshu." He gave her a wry grin, not rebuffing her for the obvious sabotage. She frowned at him, then glanced over his shoulder.

"I'm sorry, ladies. I need to speak with the Great Waterbender alone." Before either he or the group could protest, she dragged him away by the arm.

"What are you doing?" Miyo whispered as they reached the other end of the buffet table, well out of ear-shot of anyone else. Natquik quirked his eyebrows and glanced around the room.

"You mean before you interrupted? I was enjoying myself."

"Natquik, you're at a formal dinner and you're engaged to foreign royalty. You need to act like it!"

"I know I'm engaged." He seemed briefly irritated, but it quickly melted into one of his typical grins. A grin that showed off every one of his dimples, and made his eyes literally spark. Oh, how much she hated that grin. "Those lovely ladies were just…curious."

"Well, I'm glad I could stop you before you satisfied their curiosity." The comment was met with laughter, and she frowned at him again, puzzled. "You're acting odd."

"Come dance with me. You need to teach me a couple of Earth Kingdom dances so I can impress the other girls." He took her hand then, which she ripped away hastily, her heart speeding up.

"I'm not going to dance with you, Natquik."

"Why not? Airbenders can't dance?"

"No, it'd be improper." Highly improper, she thought, though part of her didn't think it would be. After all, she was a nun and he was soon to be married. It would be completely innocent.

She quickly snuffed out that argument.

"Miyo, you have to lighten up." Natquik was becoming frustrated, his expression pleading as he set his cup on the table beside them. "You've been in a bad mood for the last two days! Just _try_ to have some fun. Come and dance with me." He held out his hand, tempting her to take it. With a glance, she saw him staring at her earnestly but warmly, a half-smile playing at his mouth. Like a hero out of the romances that she'd collected so carefully in her travels.

It was only when her eyes came to rest on his cup that the romance ended. "Natquik, have you been drinking?"

He pulled his hand back, a ghost of a frown crossing his face. "Not really." But he had been. His strange behavior now suddenly made sense—the smiles and laughs, the frowns and roguish looks. They were all a product of alcohol, as he was never so expressive when sober.

"How many of these have you had to drink?" She held up the cup, which he eyed sullenly.

"One? Maybe?" At her sigh, he jumped to excuses. "Well, they're walking around here with trays of big cups and small cups. I figured I didn't want to drink too much, so I took a small cup."

"Is this a small cup?" He nodded, and she sipped it. "Natquik…this is _suj_." The name was obviously unfamiliar, his expression blank. "_Suj_ is a really strong drink!"

"Well, I know," he said hesitantly, looking out over the crowd. "A little too strong. So I had to follow it with one of the big cups just to get the taste out of my mouth."

Miyo groaned, then took hold of his arm. "So now you're drunk."

"I'm not drunk." He didn't budge as she tugged on him, his eyebrows gliding downward in irritation. "I'm just a bit warm, that's all."

"You were flirting with eight girls nearly ten years your junior."

"That's because I like flirting with pretty girls." He yanked himself out of her grip. "Nothing to do with you _or_ drinking."

"And you're acting ridiculous! You want to dance with me?"

"Yes, believe it or not, Miyo. I might want to dance with you. Just because."

Their voices were getting louder, and she glanced around uncomfortably. Yet it must have been obvious they were fighting, as the patrons in their vicinity had given them a wide berth. With some shame, she ducked her head; an Air Nun shouldn't be acting this way in public.

"Can we go outside with this? People are staring." Miyo kept her voice low, refusing to meet his eyes. Perhaps if she just didn't look at him, she could calm down and he could, too. But she felt his stare on her—felt it darkening even if she couldn't see him.

Then, abruptly, Natquik grabbed the cup out of her hand. Before she could stop him, he drank it, throwing his head back so swiftly that he must have swallowed it all in a few gulps. With a loud sigh, he set it hard on the table.

"There. _Now_ I'm going to be drunk. Do you feel justified in your jealousy yet?"

She wanted to slap him right then. The urge swelled in her chest like a terrible wave, and it took all of her strength to force it down. How could he inspire such violence in her? Such anger? Hating herself and hating him because of it, she grabbed his arm again.

"Let's just go," she muttered. This time, he listened.

* * *

**A/N: **'Kua Mei' was, of course, the name Katara assumed in "City of Walls and Secrets." People generally seem to interpret it as 'fascinating beauty,' so I'm going with that interpretation, too.

The next chapter is such a close extension of this one that I'll post it in the next several days. I would've posted them all together but then the chapter would've been pretty long. And this served as good place, tone-wise, to end it.


	16. Ch 15: Dark Thoughts and Dark Hallways

**Warnings: **There is some mild, possibly just implied, sexual content toward the end of this chapter. Nothing strong, but definitely stronger than anything before this.

* * *

**Chapter 15 - Dark Thoughts and Dark Hallways**

* * *

Hikoshu had to admit that he searched for Kua Mei. Even when he didn't have much of a reason to, or much to go on, he still looked. Unfortunately, all the young girls around her age were dressed the same, with thick make-up and tin hair ornaments that fluttered with their hand-fans. The search, though, at least kept his mind off of his anxiety over small-talk. Men and women came and went just as they had when Miyo was there, and he nodded and listened just as before. Except now, he found the words to get them to stop talking to him.

After all, he had a mission.

His plans were put on hold indefinitely by the appearance of a green-hatted servant, who blocked his way so firmly that he couldn't brush him off.

"His Majesty would like a word with you, Master Avatar."

Hikoshu hesitated before the older man as doubt infused him again. Talking to kings seemed more like something Miyo needed to do. But she wasn't there, and he couldn't turn the man down. So nodding and mustering a pleasant smile, he followed.

Du Gong had taken refuge inside a recess, set into the wall farthest from the food and music. The alcove was small, narrow, with only enough room for a smaller version of Du Gong's throne and the shallowly raised stone dais which held it. In apparent boredom, the king sat with his elbow propped on one rectangular arm rest, holding his chin in his hand as he looked out on the festivities. His cuirass of the day before had been replaced by thick folds of charcoal-gray silks, embroidered in gold thread and depicting large birds with spread wings. His bald head was now hidden under an elaborate headdress—black felt pulled through and then spread over a framework of gold and decorated with coils of green silk. Even his beard had lost its little decorative bar, and now the black hair was woven painstakingly through a fine gold mesh. Only his rings were the same, three different-colored jewels flashing as he waved Hikoshu closer.

A guard stood by the arm of the chair, but at his arrival, the soldier ducked his head and slipped away, walking backwards as he went. Hikoshu stared after him, until Du Gong's voice broke through his quiet study.

"Avatar, I hope your evening is going well?"

Hikoshu turned back to the throne to find that Du Gong had straightened in his seat, his gaunt cheeks twitching with the effort to act interested. His eyes were still sunken—still haunted by that unhealthy look, as if merely watching the party was sucking the life out of him.

"It's fine. A very pleasant party." Despite his nerves, he was fascinated by the king's appearance. What could possibly have created that dull, lifeless look in his face? Hikoshu wasn't unfamiliar with rulers; he had known the previous Fire Lord, and Atua—though not much of a king—was the leader of a whole tribe. Neither of those men, even in their most stressful moments, had seemed so…broken.

After a moment, he realized he was staring. And that Du Gong was staring back. Awkwardly, Hikoshu shifted in his spot and tried to fill the silence. "Thank you for throwing it…for me."

As he berated himself for his fumbling answer, Du Gong continued to eye him. "Your friend the airbender said you needed to speak with me." He patted the arm of his chair, and Hikoshu looked to the two guards who stood sentry outside of the alcove. They didn't move, which led him to the conclusion the gesture was for him.

"Yes, Your Majesty." He moved closer, having to step onto the dais to reach the king's side. Slowly, Du Gong's gaze followed him. "It's a matter concerning the sandbenders. In fact, if I—"

The king held up a hand, his eyes falling closed, and Hikoshu stopped clumsily. Was he signaling for him to be quiet? After a moment of silence, he looked to Hikoshu again, his ringed fingers folding into his palm.

"Such matters aren't meant for a feast. It is more important that you enjoy this night." Confused, he nodded. Why had Du Gong invited him over here? Why did he even ask about his concerns? Hikoshu began to suspect the audience wasn't for any pertinent discussions, but rather to boss him around in some silly display of power.

The idea thoroughly irritated him.

Du Gong leaned back in his throne tiredly. "I imagine you're wondering about my little hole in the wall." No, he wasn't, but the king seemed intent on telling him. "It's for protection. If someone were to attack, I could be sealed in here so quickly that they wouldn't even know I was in the room. And while they sorted through the bodies, looking for me, I would make my escape from the palace." His expression never changed, but Hikoshu detected a hint of glee in his voice and a glimmer in his eye that hadn't been there moments before. As if the mere idea of carnage excited him.

That Du Gong would find amusement in the thought of his subjects being murdered sickened him, and he had to wonder if the man was ill in more ways than one.

"Have you met my advisor?" Du Gong said after another long pause, then gestured lazily to no one—much to Hikoshu's growing unease. "I have many advisors, as my kingdom is large. But this is one of which I'm especially proud." The figures of silk standing a protective distance away all of a sudden parted to admit a singular man from its center. As he appeared, a strange look came to Du Gong's eyes. Almost a hunger. "He is my most treasured."

The man that approached sent another jolt of familiarity through him, though not nearly so powerful as the one he'd felt with Kua Mei. He was Hikoshu's height, a formidable man who looked too hard for the watery bronze silks he wore. His wide shoulders, made to carry armor, were thrown back in stately confidence, and the ropey muscles of his neck protruded from the broad, embroidered collar that hemmed his robes. Above that, the man's expression was strikingly warm. His brown beard, trimmed neatly close, hid the square contours of his jaw and framed a wide smile, while large brown eyes squinted pleasantly above a nose that had been broken at least once. His hair, hanging loose from a knot on the back of his head, was pulled taut enough to smooth the wrinkles of his brow, leaving Hikoshu to only guess his age was on the cusp of forty.

Coming to a stop before the dais, the man went smoothly to his knees and lowered his head to the floor. With his arms outstretched, he cupped his hands before the king in supplication.

"Your Majesty called?"

"General Gi-Luon, I would like you to meet the Avatar. Master Avatar, this is General Gi-Luon." Du Gong's eyes never left the general, nor did the strange fever in them ebb.

"We've met, Your Majesty," Gi-Luon said, lifting his head so that he watched them from below sharp eyebrows. "Many years ago, when the Avatar was a young boy. I doubt he remembers me." Though he remained on the floor, Gi-Luon still held an air of authority, as if his prone posture were simply a stretching exercise. He was both commanding and submissive—a paradox he juggled masterfully. It was strangely unnerving.

"Mark my words, Avatar, whatever you need, you will find it in this man." Du Gong leaned toward Hikoshu on one elbow, his hand caressing the arm of his chair. "He is most skillful."

"Your Majesty flatters me." He bowed his head once more such that Hikoshu saw only his hair, which fanned over the back of his neck. "But I must beg your forgiveness, as I was just about to retire for the evening. I have orders to confirm on the new battalions in the southern division, before Colonel Xu leaves in the morning." As Gi-Luon made his excuses, the light fled from Du Gong's eyes, and he rested his jaw in his hand as he waved the general way.

"Yes, go. You've had your fill of leisure." Obediently, Gi-Luon touched his forehead with his fingers and stood, backing away with his eyes downcast. Only when he reached the crowd did he turn his back to the king.

Du Gong never tore his gaze from Gi-Luon's retreating figure, even long after he'd disappeared into the press of bodies. "General Gi-Luon is a good man. Good man, indeed."

Hikoshu had no idea if he was supposed to have witnessed that, or if he had just been caught up by accident. Nor did he know if Du Gong was talking to him now. There was a certain tension to the air, as if Hikoshu were an uninvolved party intruding on some private discussion. And yet Du Gong made no acknowledgement of his presence. He almost seemed to be forgotten, the king's attention still lost on the crowd.

Finally, when the moment became too uncomfortable to bear, Hikoshu cleared his throat. "Your Majesty, if you'll excuse me, I haven't had a chance to eat yet." Du Gong snapped his gaze upward, as if just remembering Hikoshu was there. He lifted his head and waved his hand again in dismissal.

"Please, enjoy the party, Master Avatar. This is all for you."

As Miyo had instructed him, Hikoshu walked away from the throne with his back to its occupant. Partly because of the politics she had emphasized. But mostly because the look on Du Gong's face had made his skin crawl, and he didn't yet know why.

**xxXxxxXxxXxxxXxx**

Miyo had been mistaken. Natquik wasn't drunk when they were at the feast. But the longer they wandered the mostly empty halls, Miyo holding tight to his arm, the less sober he became. Not stumbling over himself, like other drunks she'd seen, nor slurring and babbling incoherently. Yet he was quite a bit more talkative than usual, his features dancing in time to his words with expressions she'd never seen him wear before. And he focused even less than he normally would.

Which was especially troubling as she had no idea how to get to his room, and his sense of direction was severely impaired.

"I think it's this hall," he said with certainty, looking down an anonymously green-lit corridor. Of course, he'd said the same thing with certainty the last five times, and Miyo glanced at it with a sigh.

"We've been through this way."

"Oh…guess that might be why it looks familiar." He frowned at it deeply, then turned behind them. "That kind of looks familiar, too. Yeah, I think it's that way." She rubbed at her forehead, suddenly feeling very tired, and leaned against the wall.

"It's not that way, either. Can you just tell me what your wing looked like?"

"Green." He definitely was certain of that. "And large. And it smelled like stewed slush onions."

"Slush onions." She gave another sigh, throwing up her hands, and headed back through the doors.

They stood at a crossway of four halls, each letting out onto a spacious, hexagonal atrium that served as the intersection. Flat stones led from the latticed folding doors of each corridor to a reflection pool in the center, and the green-tiled eaves of the palace hung low over a protected walkway that lined the atrium's perimeter. For inclement weather, Miyo assumed, though the chilly night was flawless right now. So instead of returning to the hallway that had taken them there, she crossed the open space and sat on the ledge of the pool. "Maybe we can just wait until you sober up."

"Or we can just go to your room." Natquik had followed her into the crosswalk, his face devoid of all the lechery that normally would've accompanied such a statement. The white gravel that blanketed the ground crunched under his boots, which made him grin in silly delight. "Sounds kind of like snow, doesn't it? Looks like snow, too."

"It's the moon." Above them, it shone brilliantly, whitewashing the rocks and hiding the green doors with murky shades of gray. The decorative pool—a smaller square basin set within a larger one—caught the light in its dark water, such that two surfaces reflected two rippling moons. "Just an illusion. Like everything else here."

"You know," Natquik said to the rancor in her voice, "this is just a thought, but I'm thinking that you kind of don't like it here." He sat beside her on the wide ledge, and Miyo finally detected a slight waver to his posture.

"Really?"

Natquik nodded emphatically, missing the sarcasm. "Yeah, you've been in a pretty foul mood. Well…more so than your _usual _foul mood…"

"Natquik, please stop talking." She rested her head in her hands, propping her elbows against her knees.

"Now come on. You can tell me." He pressed his hands against his chest. "I swear it'll be between you, me, and those two charming people in the water there." He then gestured to their reflections.

Fine. If he wanted her to vent, she'd be happy to vent. He was probably too drunk to care what she said, anyway. "I'm angry."

Natquik's eyebrows shot up. "What about?"

"You and Hikoshu." Now Miyo straightened, her shoulders going rigid with offense. "This place is a cesspit, and neither of you can see that. You're enjoying the clothes, and the food, and the women, and ignoring everything those distractions are built upon."

"Like what?"

"Like my people!" Her voice rang against the surrounding walls. "The airbenders are sent to the temples when they're young in order to become spiritual leaders, while the non-benders stay on the steppes." Miyo had to work hard to control her volume. "But Omashu thinks that the land is useless to us. They keep asking why we can't all live in the temples as one. Or why can't the plains Nomads live within Omashu? They don't understand who we are—all they think is that the temple Nomads are unfairly withholding a better life from the plains Nomads, forcing them to live as savages. But they say that so they can justify taking our land. And every year, they push a little further, and their excuses become a little louder, and their costumes become a little gaudier as my people are shoved to the edge of extinction!"

The anger was relieving, but wrong. Even as her chest heaved with the release the tirade had given her, Miyo's shoulders felt heavy with the weight of her emotions. The Air Nomads didn't believe in such negative outbursts; even bad moods were a form of attachment.

But Miyo had always, even in her biased experience, been an exception. She desperately wished she could feel the cool detachment that made her sisters polished diplomats and gave her people the appearance of wisdom. She wished she didn't care as much as she did—that Hikoshu's words earlier that day hadn't hurt her, or that Natquik's sympathetic look right now didn't fill her with such guilt. How she wished she could be a better Air Nomad, in more ways than one.

But she wasn't, and so she stared pointedly at her palms to avoid Natquik's gaze—to avoid seeing if he had noticed the flush creeping up her neck. "I don't blame you for enjoying Omashu," she muttered. "But I'm angry that I'm the only one who isn't."

"I'm not enjoying Omashu." Natquik's voice was soft, and she felt compelled to steal a glance. He had leaned closer, his glazed eyes oddly focused though still distinctly red, and she could smell the alcohol on him. "Sure, it's a novelty, and interesting for its differences. But I still see what it is." With a sudden laugh, he drew back. "They don't think much of the Water Tribes, either, you know. You should've seen what they wanted me to wear tonight." His face scrunching up, he waved his fingers through the air in a dramatic flourish. "Some crazy fur…thing, with beads and feathers and such. Would've completely frozen to death if this had been the Pole, but I guess that's what they think we wear, right?"

"Then why aren't you frustrated?" Miyo pleaded, dropping her hands into her lap. "Why would you flirt with those girls, when you know what they're thinking and you _know _none of it goes deeper than an inch?"

Natquik grinned broadly, his body tilting to the left as he regarded the carefully-carved latticework bordering the walkway. "Because girls are fun to flirt with?" His grin grew wicked at her disgusted snort. Yet just as quickly, the smile vanished, and his voice assumed a sober note that almost reached his gaze. "Because to change the way they think about me, I have to show them the person I am. And I happen to be a simple tribesman who enjoys having the attention of a girl or two."

Then, sweeping his hands toward the pool, he bended the water. A silver-shimmering tendril snaked upward, gliding around his palms as he pulled it around him. Miyo couldn't help a small smile, transfixed on the ever-shifting shape as Natquik stretched it thin between them. Now a screen of water separated her from him, and somewhere in its rolling depths, she could see his profile, highlighted by the moon. The rest of his features were in shadow, obscured by the billowing water.

"I also happen to be the world's greatest waterbender," he said, causing her to laugh. "Things are sometimes hard to see. Like looking through water. Everything comes out funny on the other side." With trepidation, Miyo touched the surface of the screen, and marveled as tiny ripples spread out from her fingers. Yet the water held steady, offering some resistance as she slipped her hand through it. It wasn't as cold as she expected, the water caressing her knuckles but not leaving them wet, and her smile broke into a grin as she felt Natquik clasp her fingers.

The water screen distorted her view, the glow of her skin disappearing under the darker shade of Natquik's. She felt something rough under her palm, and knew he'd pressed her hand to his cheek. The warmth of his skin matched the warmth of his breaths, fogging against her wrist. He was right; sometimes it was hard to see what was on the other side. And sometimes, it might be worth trying to look, anyway.

Acting on impulse, Miyo leaned forward to stick her face through the screen. As it wasn't thick, she emerged on the other side almost immediately, the water flooding over her ears. Yet the action had the desired effect—she caught Natquik's expression of shock, inches from hers, and even before she had a chance to gloat, the water collapsed around her. The resultant splash soaked them both.

"Some waterbender," she taunted, and Natquik's shock changed swiftly to indignation.

"I'm drunk. It's hard to pay attention."

"Well, now you have this girl's attention." Her smile was warm, but she made sure to add a little defiance, as well. "So what do you plan to do with it?"

Natquik gave an incredulous laugh, letting her hand go. And for a pleasantly tense moment, they were rooted to the spot. Simply enjoying.

Only the sound of voices pulled her eyes from his. Gasping, Miyo jerked away and looked to the hallway directly in front of them, its door still half-ajar. No light was visible beyond the faint green lamps, but she was certain the voices were echoing from there.

They were carried on the air currents.

Perhaps if Natquik hadn't been so close to her, she would've been able to think. But Miyo couldn't get past how near he was, or how red her cheeks likely were, or how the moon was casting its soft light upon the scene, as if they were two lovers from a story. The impropriety of their private moment shook her, and with sudden panic, Miyo seized Natquik's hand.

"Miyo—" he began in surprise, but harshly, she shushed him. Because he wasn't an airbender, he couldn't hear the voices—not yet, at any rate, and so she had to drag him into another hallway as the sounds drew closer.

Natquik was still fighting her when she shoved him through the doors. "I wasn't going to—" They were going to hear him. In terror, Miyo pushed him against the wall and dove back to close the latticework, but Natquik grabbed her arm. "What's—"

Not enough time. Instead, she thrust him against the wall again, holding him there with her body as she clapped a hand to his mouth. As long as they remained hidden behind the edge of the door, perhaps…

She could hear footsteps, and from the sudden uncertainty in his eyes, Natquik obviously heard them now, too. There were two people, who spoke in such a low murmur that their words were almost indiscernible. And yet they were so close that Miyo was sure they would see her nun's habit, even in this light. Or worse, if they were to come down their hallway….

Anxious, she squeezed tighter against Natquik and adjusted her grip absently on his mouth.

Their feet hit gravel, and one voice became audible with the breeze. "Give one to each person," a man said, so quietly that she almost missed it. "I want it done within the week."

"Are there contingencies if we get caught?" That voice was distinctly male, though much higher pitched, and Miyo glanced to Natquik in surprise. He was listening intently, his eyes narrowed with the effort of catching their words.

"I don't make contingencies. I don't expect mistakes." Again they were walking, and again, she hugged herself to Natquik, barely registering his hands on her hips. "You have your stories if something should happen."

"Ba Sing Se," the high-voiced man muttered, and there was a sweeping sound, followed by an 'oof' as something hard hit the gravel.

"One week." The voice of the first man suddenly grew faint, and Miyo realized with a surge of relief that he'd turned into the opposite hallway. The second man groaned as he got to his feet, but fortunately the sound moved away. Moments later, he hobbled back into the original corridor, grumbling under his breath.

Miyo waited until their footsteps had faded, and then waited longer to make sure it wasn't her imagination. Pain lancing through her chest eventually reminded her that she had to breathe, and she let it out slowly, releasing Natquik's mouth at the same time.

"That was weird. I wonder what would've happened if they'd seen—" She cut off abruptly, realizing that he still held her. "Natquik?"

He was staring at her—a look that traveled every inch of her face and made her feel like he was seeing something even she couldn't see. He then sucked on his bottom lip, furrowing his brow curiously, and her breath caught again.

"Your palms are sweating."

It was such an innocent statement, but heat flared through her in response. Suddenly, she could feel all the hard contours of his body pressed into hers, as well as his hands as they slid up her waist.

Miyo still had some resistance left, though it waned in the intensity of his gaze. "Did you hear what that man said?" Even before she finished, Natquik was shaking his head, and she wondered if he'd been able to follow the conversation. Or if he'd even cared.

Then she realized that she didn't care. With his eyes trained on her like that, there wasn't much else she could think about. Other than what he planned to do. What she wanted him to do.

All of Miyo's resistance melted as he kissed her.

Natquik had kissed her once before, as a final tender goodbye when they were returning to their separate lives. This moment, however, was driven with need, and with the knowledge that he shouldn't be doing it. So he held nothing back, one hand on her neck to keep her in the embrace.

It was unnecessary, as Miyo had no desire to break away. She could taste the fading hints of alcohol, smell the _suj_ on his breath—all the small things that made him so very _real_. And she wanted nothing more than to drink it in. So she kissed him back just as fiercely, her arms circling his shoulders to hold him closer.

It wouldn't matter in the morning, part of her mind whispered as his lips changed from fervent to insistent. He wouldn't remember any of this—his loss of inhibitions, this empty palace hall. He wouldn't remember anything he'd done, and everything would be fine. It would be like this night never happened.

One of his hands traveled under her shawl, brushing along her ribs, and she moaned deeply against his mouth as painful crackles of lightning followed his touch. Then he was moving. Miyo didn't quite register how he was moving, though she followed him without thought. But he was just switching their positions, and now she found herself tucked against the wall as he pressed into her, enveloping her.

He was everywhere. Catching her wrist, he pinned it on the stone before his fingers slid gently down to her elbow, then her shoulder, and to her chin. The sensation sent chills through her, even with the fabric of her sleeve, and her free hand wrapped tightly into his hair, pulling it loose.

Not that she really knew what her hands were doing. Miyo leaned her head back, gasping, as his mouth released hers. His lips then dropped past her jaw, to a point on her neck just below her ear. It overwhelmed her, and she gave a ragged breath as her eyes fell shut, her fingers slipping under his collar to brush over the taut muscles of his back.

Her legs must have given out at one point, as Miyo realized he'd grasped her thigh, folding it around his as he hiked it up along his hip. Now Natquik was holding her weight on him as his other hand continued to explore her waist and his mouth explored her neck. And beyond all that, Miyo could feel the contact of his body on hers. She couldn't even tell whose heart was hammering, or if it were both.

She was no longer herself. She was his, to do with as he pleased in the dusty corner of some Earth Kingdom hallway. Part of her mind whispered excuses so frantically that she couldn't hear its whispers at all anymore, and the rest of her thoughts hummed in her ears like so many ignored conversations.

It didn't matter. None of it mattered. Not the betrayed vows to his future bride. Not the betrayed vows to her Temple. Not the lingering taste of herb wine in her mouth, or the fire that ate at her skin wherever he touched it.

Only Natquik mattered. And as he consumed her on the outside, the fire consumed her within.

It was one of the hardest things Miyo had to do, pressing a hand against his shoulder. She didn't know where she found the resolve, as moments before, she had been willing to give everything for him. Now, though, the whispered excuses died as her scruples kicked in, and shaking, she airbended him away.

It just a gentle push, not meant to knock him over. But it was strong enough to let him know that they were done, and he released her almost immediately, stumbling backwards in mild surprise. Forced to hold herself up, Miyo found she needed the wall for support, which she planted her hands against gratefully.

"I…I'm sorry, Natquik." She had hoped that distance between them would make the gnawing sensation in her stomach abate, but it didn't. He was obviously dazed, his hair partly undone about his face, his clothing disheveled—and all from her. "We just…"

"No, I understand." Natquik dragged his wrist across his mouth, wiping the taste of her away, and his eyes settled on some point on the floor. "I was drunk. Wasn't thinking straight." His words were stilted, and he still wouldn't meet her gaze.

But how could she reassure him, when she was the one who stopped it? When she couldn't even touch him now, because she was terrified they'd start again? Swallowing hard, Miyo straightened her shawl, her fingers hesitating on her neck where he had kissed her. The skin still felt hot and flush.

"We both just got carried away by the moment. It happens." The excuses Miyo had dismissed so quickly now returned in force, though they were harder to buy this time. "Just some wine and a dark corner. That's all."

Natquik finally met her eyes, and the fire still swam through her, but to a lesser, more bearable degree. "Carried away," he repeated, as if to convince himself of that reasoning. She swallowed once more and nodded.

"It won't happen again."

His shoulders sagged with his heavy breaths, his eyes hooded with disappointment, and Miyo had to resist the urge to go to him. She couldn't be near him right now, and they both knew it. So they kept their distance, recovering from the moment on their own.

The ordeal had sobered Natquik up, at least, and his sense of direction was much clearer this time. They walked in silence, standing apart from each other, their gazes and thoughts elsewhere.

Miyo had a lot of things to sort through, so she was glad for the quiet. She had never denied to herself how attracted she was to Natquik. The attraction had been there for years, though she'd studiously avoided any situation that might provoke it. As spiritual leaders, the temple Nomads abstained from such worldly things as infatuations, and with the separation of nuns and monks, it made things a little easier. But then Miyo had met Hikoshu, and then she'd met Natquik, and now the whole matter was a muddy mess.

With Hikoshu, Miyo had come to terms with her feelings. She loved him deeply, in a way that defied description or understanding. It never interfered with her faith because she'd accepted Hikoshu's place in her life. But what about Natquik? The only thing Miyo knew for certain was that what she felt for him was not the same as what she felt for Hikoshu. It was something she'd never quite experienced before, and she had no one to tell her what it was. Simple infatuation? Pure physical attraction? Was it because she couldn't have him that she wanted him?

Was there nothing more to it? Miyo had no desire to lie awake at night dreaming up poetry dedicated to his smile, like in some of those romantic stories she often heard. Nor did she sigh and get fluttery at the very thought of him sweeping her off her feet. But she felt warm whenever he made jokes he knew only she would get, and her heart jumped whenever he gave her that grin she absolutely hated. And perhaps 'fluttery' was a way to describe what she felt when he stared at her like she was the only person worth staring at.

Yet it couldn't be love, because 'love' was what she had for Hikoshu. And this was definitely not that.

They still weren't speaking when they finally reached his room. Which was, in fact, in a large green hall that smelled of onions. Natquik opened the door and paused in its entryway, turning back to her.

"I don't feel horribly gallant, you showing me to my room and all." He gave her a lopsided smile, which made her grin despite her glum mood. His tousled hair made her want to tousle it even more, though she resisted the urge.

"Next time I get drunk, I'll let you escort me. How does that sound?" His grin grew wider at that.

"You know, if you don't think you can find your way, you're always welcome to stay here."

The offer struck a chord in her, and suddenly, Miyo wanted nothing more than to stay. But she forced herself to grimace. "Your hall smells like onions. I think I'd rather sleep in the stables."

He gave a short laugh and started to enter his room. Then, hesitating, he looked back to her and smiled, staring at her like she was the only one worth staring at. "Good night, Miyo."

Her heart fluttered. And it didn't stop until she was back in her own room.


	17. Ch 16: To Forgive and to Forget

**Warnings: **This chapter, more than really any chapter before or after it, is _very _spoilery for "**The Pipa Player**." The Silk-Washing Stream is made as a story that can be read on its own, without reading the other, but because of that, it's necessary to spoil the other story to some degree in order to tell this one. So if you either are reading or actually intend to read "The Pipa Player," this is probably the one chapter that will ruin the climax for you the most.

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**Chapter 16 - To Forgive and to Forget**

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"Great, he found you. Did you bring the food?" Miyo jumped from the bison's back, landing gracefully on her toes as her robes billowed around her. Hikoshu glanced from her to the broad horizon behind Tehsa, his legs growing weak. It'd been so easy to forget how high up they were while inside the palace.

"Hikoshu?" She stepped in front of him, breaking the trance, and he nodded. Pulling a cream silk satchel from his shoulder, he gave her a stern frown.

"Were you just planning to run off without saying goodbye?"

"Of course not." She wrinkled her nose as she took it. "That's why I sent Natquik." Then, digging around inside the fabric, she added, "They use silk for everything, don't they?"

"I grabbed some apples, figs, bamboo peaches, a few handfuls of cherries, and something they call mud grapes. Don't worry, though, I tried one, and it doesn't taste like mud."

Satisfied by both his inventory and her own exam, Miyo jumped back into the saddle—a movement that was quite disturbing, as she could have easily overshot the bison and then fallen far into the city proper. "Thanks, Hikoshu! It's hard to forage when traveling in the winter."

"So what happened to you last night?" He pulled an extra apple from one of the deep pockets of his robe—a very nice feature, in addition to the robe's light weight as well as its warmth. And it was a soothing brown color, too, different from all the greens and golds.

"What do you mean?"

Hikoshu couldn't see her as he circled around to Tehsa's head, but he heard a note of hesitancy in her voice. At his approach, the bison swiveled toward him and blinked one bright, soft brown eye curiously, her shaggy mane shaking. He still didn't trust really large animals, but Tehsa had been pretty easygoing. So he held up a hand cautiously, then held up the apple, and she rumbled in delight.

"I mean, where did you go? You told me you'd be back, and then you abandoned me." The bison opened her cavernous mouth, and Hikoshu was treated to a sight of all sixty some-odd teeth. Very dangerous, vegetarian teeth. Throwing the apple onto the back of her ample tongue, he then retreated before she could lick him in gratitude, patting the side of her head as he stepped away.

"I went to bed. I was tired." Obviously, there was something she wasn't telling him, and he stopped by Tehsa's first set of legs to peer up at the saddle.

"You know the real reason why no one doubts an airbender's word? Because you all make terrible liars."

"Well, where else would I have gone?" Her head appeared, her mouth pulled into an irritated line. Miyo always hated it when he saw right through her. "You survived just fine without me."

"Depends on how you look at it." Sighing, he leaned against Tehsa's leg, who started to protest until he rubbed her knee. The palace now towered in front of him, a tan-colored monstrosity despite its garishly green innards, blotting out the mid-morning sun. "I eventually found some nice girls who helped me out and got me back to my room."

"Oh, really." The tone was more accusatory than interested, and he rolled his eyes.

"I also got to speak to King Du Gong."

"Well, that's good! You needed to talk to him."

"Yeah, I don't think it was as good as you think it was." He leaned his head back to look up at the saddle, but immediately straightened at the vertigo. "Have you noticed the king's a little…strange?"

"That's usually what you get from centuries of royal inbreeding."

He supposed that was true, though it didn't make his neck crawl any less. That whole exchange had had a hint of madness about it, and he dreaded their next meeting later that afternoon.

"So did you ever find Natquik last night?"

"No, I didn't see him." Her muffled voice floated from the other side of Tehsa, and Hikoshu realized she'd dismounted to check the girdles. Bending at the waist, he looked through Tehsa's legs to spy her robes, fluttering about her legs.

"Funny, because when I talked to him, he said you did."

That got her attention. Abruptly, Miyo stopped working and stooped over to meet his gaze, her face ashen.

"What else did he tell you?"

"Nothing. I never talked to him." There was a pause, as she finally caught his meaning, and then her color quickly returned, though he couldn't tell if it was from anger or embarrassment. She threw him a scowl before straightening. "But now that the owlcat's out of the bag, do you want to tell me what happened?"

"Because tricking me into talking to you is the best way to gain my confidence." The girdle jerked, and Tehsa groaned at the harsh treatment. "Sorry, Tehsa."

"Tell me now or tell me later. It's your choice."

"Yeah, well, there won't be a later if Natquik would just hurry. The morning's almost past."

"He said he had some final business to attend to." What that could be, Hikoshu couldn't guess; as far as he knew, Natquik had no business, unfinished or otherwise, in Omashu. "He said he'd be here shortly."

The waterbender was only as good as his word. Miyo was still getting Tehsa ready to go when he finally appeared, waving his thanks to the guards who let him out of the Nomad Gate. From his spot on the ground, Hikoshu noticed that Natquik was back in his old Shaman coat, which didn't look as washed as his robes had, and he'd pulled his hair back on the top of his head, the rest hanging loose. Through the fingers of one gloved hand, something orange peeked out.

Sparing him a chastising frown, Miyo slipped down onto Tehsa's horn to tie the reins as Natquik sauntered up to the bison.

"What part of 'we leave first thing in the morning' did you not understand yester…?" Her upbraiding was cut short as he stopped below her and offered up the 'something' in his hand.

Miyo seemed to lose the heart to admonish him after that, her mouth falling open as she took it from him. The flower he'd held was a Ming's chrysanthemum, dozens of golden orange petals curving inward toward a violet center. The blossom was larger than her palm, so she cradled it delicately in both hands, Tehsa's reins forgotten.

"I knew I was going to be late, so I got you something nice," he said in unnecessary explanation, backing up as Tehsa grunted at him. "I found it in that garden outside of Hikoshu's room."

Hikoshu blinked. "You were in my room?"

Natquik only responded with a shrug, barely glancing away from Miyo. She was still staring at the flower, one hand absently brushing her hair back.

Then, somewhere in her astonishment, she found her voice again. "Why, Natquik. You killed an innocent flower for me. How thoughtful." But her expression was almost mystified, quite at odds with the sarcasm.

"Believe me, it was going to die anyway. The whole plant was about to fall into the water." He tucked his hands in his pockets, again wearing his usual half-grin. "I figured if given the choice, it'd rather die in the hair of a beautiful woman, rather than some stagnant pond."

Hikoshu had to hand it to him—he was good. The Water Tribes in general placed no value on flowers as gifts, and the Air Nomads had no use for baubles. So the fact that, despite his cultural upbringing, Natquik knew that—despite her cultural upbringing—Miyo would be taken by a flower was an impressive feat of insight.

Miyo glanced down at him, then crawled quickly back into the saddle, probably to hide her inevitable blush. "You're incorrigible."

Self-satisfied, Natquik gazed beamingly after her. It actually took two loud throat-clearings to get his attention.

"Hey, Natquik, let me talk to you for a moment," Hikoshu said, pushing himself up from the ground. His brows arching curiously, Natquik followed him a distance just out of ear-shot of Miyo.

"So do you know what you're going to do at the North Pole?" Hikoshu said, keeping his voice low as they neared the palace. Natquik gave a quick shrug, confused.

"Look for the scroll and get married? It's not all that difficult. Do _you_ know what you're going to do?"

Hikoshu grinned wryly at that. "No clue. I haven't even talked to the king yet about finding someone who'll help me with the sandbenders."

"Well, you're going to need that. I doubt they'll take just any random person to one of their most sacred sites."

"I know." Even if being the Avatar had a few perks, it didn't necessarily give him the kind of free-rein he required. "I imagine it'll probably take me a couple of weeks to get to the Spirit Library, once I get started."

"Well, it'll take us three weeks to get to the North Pole, so we'll all be perfectly on schedule." Natquik pursed one side of his mouth in sudden suspicion. "What else did you want?"

The heart of the matter. "What happened between you and Miyo last night?"

"Nothing." His expression was completely blank, but the speed of his response gave him away. There was a long, painful pause, and Natquik glanced at Miyo beyond his shoulder. "Why? What did she say?"

"I think you're both acting strange enough that I can figure it out myself."

Natquik considered him for a moment, rubbing the back of his neck. "So she didn't say anything?" Hikoshu shook his head. "Then nothing happened."

"Look, I'm not blind. You like her, she likes you. That's obvious enough." He held up a hand to avert one of Natquik's excuses. "Yeah, I know, you're engaged, she's a nun. So on and so forth. But I also know you. And I know how you tend to 'forget' important things like that when you're so inclined."

He gave an irritated sigh. "Hikoshu, I got a bison to catch. Get to the point."

"My point is that you think this is all in good fun, but it's not fun for her. Don't let it get too serious, alright?"

"Wow, that was inspired. Of course, it was more inspired when I said it to _you_ about Mayami two months ago." Even in his irritation, he still grinned. "Any other sage advice, Master Hypocrite?"

Hikoshu fought back a glare. "Seriously, Natquik. You think, since she's playing along, it's hurting no one. But this is her _life_. She has nothing else. Not me, not even you. And every time you tease her or give her flowers or try to make her jealous, you're taking that away from her."

At least Natquik was now appreciating the gravity of his words. "She's a grown woman. She doesn't need you to take care of her."

"And she doesn't need you toying with her." A shout from Miyo drew their attention, and he motioned for her to wait. "You're going to be alone with her for three weeks. Could you please _try_ to resist any temptation?"

"I swear, I'll be as chaste as an Air Monk," Natquik said mockingly, and Hikoshu gave him a sour frown. Then the waterbender clapped him on the shoulder. "As much as I'd love to try something, nothing's going to happen. Miyo's stronger than you give her credit for."

"You're like a brother I never had, Natquik, but if you hurt her…"

Still holding his shoulder, he smiled warmly. "With all the threats and mistrust, you're just like a brother to me, too. You better go tell Miyo goodbye while you can."

That was the end of the conversation, though Hikoshu still dwelled on it as they returned to the bison. Miyo _was_ capable of taking care of herself. But she also got caught up in romantic ideas, and Natquik certainly appealed to that part of her. So, yeah, he worried about her. He was her voice of reason, just as she so often was his.

Miyo hopped out of the saddle as they neared and dusted off her hands. "We should have enough provisions for some of the journey, so we can make fewer stops. We might even arrive ahead of schedule."

Hikoshu nodded. "And I'll send you a messenger hawk with whatever I find out at the Great Library. It'll be faster than if I tried to bring the information myself." He then gave a farewell rub behind Tehsa's ear, who grumbled her appreciation. She really was a nice bison.

"Send it to Natquik," Miyo answered, as Hikoshu found a spot on the bison's neck that made her thump at least one of her six enormous feet. "I'm leaving as soon as I drop him off."

"Not staying for the wedding?" Natquik sounded disappointed, and Hikoshu finally looked back at the two. She was staring at the waterbender, unamused.

"If I tell you 'no,' will you remember this time?"

"He only hears what he wants to hear." Smiling, Hikoshu held out a hand to Miyo, preparing himself for her response. "Guess I'll see you back at the South Pole?" She grinned at him, then grabbed him into the anticipated, rib-cracking hug.

"I promise I won't take a year this time," she murmured near his ear, and he laughed a silent laugh, his chest too compressed to move. "And you promise you won't get hurt, alright?"

"I'm the Avatar. What could go wr—?"

She pulled back to press her fingers against his mouth, giving him a warning look from below her tattooed brow.

"Just promise?"

"I promise, I'll be fine." Firmly she nodded and stepped away.

"Come on, Natquik. If we don't leave now, we won't make it out of the mountains by sunset." She then airbended herself into the saddle, her hair flying around her.

Natquik stared after her for a moment, then looked to Hikoshu. "Hey, give me a hand up? No ice to bend around here."

"Yeah, sure." As he made a stirrup for the waterbender to lift himself on, he murmured, "Remember what I said."

"Yeah, thinly veiled threat, got it." For his facetiousness, Hikoshu added a little air to the lift, which sent Natquik sprawling into the saddle. His landing drew a grunt out of him.

"Good luck, Hikoshu!" Miyo said with a final wave as she climbed onto Tehsa's neck. Hikoshu returned the wave, then flung up an arm to shield his eyes from dirt as the bison took to the air.

And just that quickly, she was gone.

Despite the dizzying height that now surrounded him on three sides instead of two, Hikoshu watched the bison fade into the white winter sky. Though he had grown used to being without Miyo in the South Pole, the last two weeks had effectively reminded him of how much he missed her. So he was sad once again to see her go. Especially since she took Natquik, who was the only good friend he had outside of her.

Meaning Hikoshu was alone now. In a place he didn't understand and surrounded by people he couldn't trust.

With a morose sigh, he turned back to the palace and headed in. There were things to do.

**xxXxxxXxxXxxxXxx**

An audience with the king, Hikoshu came to understand in talking to Mei-li, was a very public affair. Guards were present as well as court scribes, magistrates, and lawyers, and then any other interested parties—ministers, solicitors, arbiters, and even other petitioners—were allowed to attend if they wished. So that on days when the king held court, privacy was quickly dispatched. And as a consequence, Hikoshu grew even more leery of the approaching meeting.

His fears were unfounded, as he discovered later that afternoon when he entered the Omashu throne room. The court, which had been only modestly filled when he visited two days ago, was now completely empty. Even the guards had been dismissed, leaving him in the presence of Du Gong alone, who sat upon his imposing chair with as much vigor as any of their other encounters. The distinct lack of activity—coupled with Du Gong's palpable solitude—made the room seem all the more severe.

The king was garbed in his leather cuirass again, which Hikoshu suspected he wore whenever he granted audiences, perhaps as a measure of protection. Underneath that were loose-flowing robes of a forest green, and his beard had been knotted through what looked like a coin. All said, he seemed far less kingly than he had in the previous two days, at least in attire; his face was just as haggard, though there was a certain annoyance in the set of his jaw.

Du Gong made him wait in silence. Even when the last guard had left, Hikoshu stood without speaking, and he intended to continue that way. After being interrupted the night before, he was determined to speak only when he expected to be heard.

Finally, after a long wait punctuated only by the breezes through the high-set windows, Du Gong moved. He rested back in his seat and laid his hands along the arms of his chair, his eyes falling half-shut. "Have your friends already departed, Avatar?"

"Just this morning, Your Majesty." Not really sure what to do with his hands, Hikoshu folded them behind his back. Did that look too intimidated? How respectful should he be without being deferential?

"Good, good. I hope they were treated well while they were here."

"I imagine they were."

Du Gong's languid gaze shifted from him to the door, as if he anticipated something. "I won't keep you long, Avatar. Please, tell me what business you have here in Omashu."

"I'm on my way to the Si Wong Desert to discuss certain matters with the sandbenders. I need a diplomat who is experienced in dealing with them."

"Omashu has not had contact with the desert cultures for years. Ba Sing Se holds control over their land." Du Gong's tone was matter-of-fact, his expression indifferent. "It's possible that I might find a desert trader who can help you, but a diplomat is unlikely."

"A trader's fine. Just someone who can help me work with them." Hikoshu honestly didn't know if a trader would be fine, but as long as it was someone who could give him an opening into the sandbender tribes, he supposed it would do.

"If I were to take on this task, may I ask what the Avatar is pursuing in regard to the sandbenders?" There was an abrupt change in Du Gong's manner—a kind of discomfiture in his voice, even as he continued to study Hikoshu with his half-lidded gaze. It was as if he was curious about Hikoshu's plans, but unused to asking anyone for anything.

Unfortunately, Hikoshu didn't feel at liberty to discuss that. Although he wasn't Water Tribe himself, he respected the Water Tribes' customs, as well as their privacy. "I would rather not go into details, Your Majesty. This is something personal. Just know that you have my gratitude for any help you can give me, as it's an extremely important manner."

Du Gong hummed under his breath, his eyes lifting toward the broad, hanging banners, interspersed along the walls. "An important, _personal_ matter for the Avatar. I suppose, in that case, it shouldn't be hard to find someone who will help you."

"Thank you, Your Majesty."

"Of course, I feel it's almost my duty as king to ask you what advantages this 'matter' might have for Omashu."

"Omashu?" He shouldn't have been confused. If Hikoshu had learned anything after so many years, it was that everyone was looking out for his or her own interests. Still, the audacity of the suggestion struck him, and as he tried to summon a tactful response, Du Gong eyed him with growing disdain.

"I imagine as this is both important and personal, then your success should certainly benefit my country."

Du Gong's tone annoyed him. It was presuming—presuming that Hikoshu owed him anything, presuming that assistance should only be given when certain demands were met.

"Your Majesty, forgive me, but I think helping the Avatar in his quest to help the world should be its own reward."

The cool, poorly disguised ill-humor in Hikoshu's voice met with a quick response, as Du Gong suddenly sat up, his indifferent attitude gone. "Forgive _me_, Avatar, but Omashu long ago lost her patience with you. We no longer help the Avatar further his agenda unless we know that his agenda will not be against us." He nearly spat those words, and Hikoshu had to fight back his bristling pride. Du Gong referred to the war fifty years past, when the previous Avatar had set sanctions against both the Fire Nation and Omashu. For those who had lived while the sanctions were in place, Hikoshu was the same person as Avatar Sidhari. Her mistakes were still his.

"What would you propose I do for you, King Du Gong?" His voice was brimming with suppressed anger. Hikoshu couldn't ignore the fact that Miyo was gone, and he had nowhere else to turn. Threatening Du Gong was a possibility, but it certainly wouldn't get him anywhere. Negotiation seemed the only plausible option.

Pacified, the king sat back in his chair, his hands once more returning to the armrests. "The Air Nomad relocation."

Hikoshu balked. "I highly doubt that's something I can help you with, since I'm firmly on the side of the Air Nomads."

"I see the Avatar is as unbiased as always."

"You insult my impartiality and then ask me to do you favors?" The air between them had grown frigid, their voices echoing hollowly off the walls, and Du Gong gave him a grim smile that almost became a sneer.

"I'm not the one who started asking for favors, Master Avatar."

Hikoshu gritted his teeth, staving off an angry retort. Diplomacy. There were people's lives at stake, and he didn't have time to argue with Du Gong.

"What about the Nomad relocation, then?"

Du Gong twisted a finger against the stone armrest, his face bland and disinterested once more. "My people in the south have been suffering under the burden of a longstanding drought, while just east of our current frontier, fertile land is being underutilized. We have the means to put the steppes to good use, but the Air Nomads have been reluctant to allow my people to expand."

Suddenly, he dug his fingers into the stone, ripping a chunk out of the chair, and held it up for Hikoshu to see. "I could simply just take the land." Examining it, he twisted the chunk between his fingers, then discarded it to the side. "But I'm being both patient and generous. Unfortunately, they continue to test my generosity, denying us land that they don't even use. I think, as Avatar, you can appeal to their sense of diplomacy, and both nations could learn to share."

"I don't take from one people and give to others." The obvious attempt at intimidation did nothing but make his anger surge. He had to curl his fists to his side to staunch the heat flowing through them. "You claim generosity, but I see little generous about threats and theft. You will do well to restrict your discussions on the issue of the Air Nomads, seek an alternative solution to the drought, or simply be grateful that I'm not putting a stop to your 'expansion' right now."

His anger suddenly became exhilaration. Gone was the awkwardness, the fear of judgment, and he knew with confidence what he needed to say. But just as he reveled in his newfound power, the exhilaration evaporated as Du Gong pushed himself to his feet, part of the throne coming up in his hand.

Hikoshu immediately stepped back into an airbending stance as the king lifted the heavy rock menacingly. For a moment, they both teetered on the brink of attack, one prepared to strike as the other prepared to defend. The sound of the doors reverberating through the room interrupted their stand-off, and Du Gong finally glanced behind him. Then, as if his fury had dissolved, he broke the stone apart and seated himself once more.

Hikoshu was slower to recover, waiting until the king was in the throne before he relaxed his guard. Yet even then, his eyes remained fixed on Du Gong, and he didn't look to the approaching person until he was nearly at his side.

"I'm sorry, Your Majesty, for running so late," Gi-Luon said humbly, going to his knees next to Hikoshu. He then rose and straightened his thick cloak of gray wool, a fur cap under his arm. "I was at the city gate."

"No matter," Du Gong said, propping his head on his fist. "I was speaking with the Avatar about the Air Nomads."

Gi-Luon frowned, his eyes shifting from the missing section of the throne to Hikoshu. "Ah. The relocation efforts."

"The Avatar is very vocal in his position _against_ Omashu." His words were clipped, but his face showed none of his previous rage. The only sign he gave of unhappiness was a quick, nervous brush of his head.

Gi-Luon, on the other hand, seemed neither offended nor upset, sparing Hikoshu a pleasant smile. "Indeed. Well, the Avatar hasn't had much exposure to the plights of the Earth Kingdom people, so I imagine he doesn't fully understand Omashu's side on the matter just yet. Perhaps it'd behoove him to spend some time here and learn a little more about our nation."

"The Avatar is interested in leaving as soon as possible, after securing a person to help him with the sandbenders."

In fact, when compared to the general, Du Gong almost sounded like a sullen child, and Hikoshu glanced between the two, confused. The king still reclined in apathy, which now seemed more and more like petulance, while Gi-Luon took on the air of an indulgent father.

"Is that so? I'm sure His Majesty has explained that we haven't had diplomatic contact with the Si Wong Desert cultures for many years now. But I should be able to find a beetle merchant or someone else from the tribes." Gi-Luon nodded briefly to the king. "By your order, Your Majesty."

"Yes, fine." Du Gong seemed to forget his earlier demands, waving his hand dismissively. "I trust you to handle the matter expeditiously, General."

"Of course, Your Majesty." With a shallow bow of his head, he then turned to Hikoshu. "While it won't be hard to find a trader, I should warn you that it may in fact take some time. Most of the passes through the eastern range are closed for the season, and desert traders notoriously hate the mountains in winter."

"How much time?" Hikoshu's stomach sank. If it took weeks, or months, he wouldn't be able to wait. Gi-Luon, though, dispelled his concerns with a complaisant smile.

"A week at the latest. I have many connections, and I'll employ them all in my efforts to assist you."

"Thank you, General, I appreciate it." And he did. For the first time since arriving in Omashu, Hikoshu felt that someone was actually hearing him, without requests or expectation.

"Good," Du Gong muttered darkly, his cheek still pressed against his fist. "You've made a powerful friend, Avatar." There was only scorn in his voice.

They were interrupted by the doors opening yet again, which caught the attention of both Gi-Luon and Du Gong. Hikoshu, however, couldn't take his eyes off the king. He was an able-bodied man, not much older than forty, and obviously still capable of great speed. But his mouth sagged strangely, as if he'd spent the greater part of his life frowning, and he still had that half-lidded gaze. It was like there were two people in him—one who demanded the respect due to a king, and another who had simply stopped caring.

Now, though, as Du Gong watched the new arrival, he raised his head slightly from his fist and his eyes lit up in that same odd, feverish way as they had for Gi-Luon the previous night. It was a dangerous, almost feral look—a look Hikoshu was certain he'd seen before, in the faces of polar dogs half-starved by the winter.

"Father, I'm sorry," the woman said breathlessly, her voice sending a ripple of recognition through him. "I just received your message." Kua Mei. Yet when Hikoshu turned, it wasn't Kua Mei who greeted him. Or it was, but Kua Mei wasn't her name.

It was Yan-lin.

She'd been seventeen the last time he saw her, and so in his memory, Yan-lin had always been a short, wispy girl who could have passed for a boy in the drab traveling clothes she frequently wore. She had been brashly overconfident, subtly insecure, and a bizarre mixture of contradictions that characterized most young women her age. But more than that, Hikoshu remembered her eyes.

Those eyes hadn't changed, although the rest of her had. Now her robes were made of silk rather than wool, a subdued olive color on top of a lower layer of taupe, and as she moved, rustling taffeta peeked out from her wide sleeves. Her brown hair, familiar in his memory as a braid, was done up in an elaborate bun and crowned with an abalone comb, which served as her only adornment aside from a deep green belt fringed with strands of black crystal beads.

In such clothing, she looked more like a woman—more like the twenty-one-year-old she now was. She'd gained curves he didn't remember her having, and had he been any other man—or she any other girl—Hikoshu was sure he would have admired the graceful way she carried herself. He wouldn't have remembered the perpetual smirk she used to wear, now tempered with humility, and perhaps he would've fooled himself into thinking her wide brown eyes, focused demurely on the floor as she walked, were devoid of all pretension.

But he knew Yan-lin. And it was with building revulsion that he watched her draw near.

She must have felt the strength of his gaze, fueled by long-buried resentment, for she looked up to catch him staring. Her steps faltered momentarily, destroying the image of a flawless noblewoman, and the sudden doubt in her expression triggered a thousand memories. They flooded him all at once, drowning him, dragging him four years into the past…

_To standing in front of a door, minutes from being captured and moments from safety. Yan-lin was holding tight to his arm. Restraining him._

_"Let's do this later," he said in panic, pulling against her grip. They needed to get through the door before they were seen; they didn't have time for apologies._

"_No, we have to do this now!" The desperation in her voice halted him, forcing him to consider her words. "I've done horrible things to you that I'll never forgive myself for doing. But after today, I'll never regret what I do again." So earnest, so scared._

"_Yan-lin, I believe you. And I forgive you." Despite his anxiety, he smiled to reassure her. "Everyone gets a second chance." And he turned away._

"_I'm so sorry," she whispered as she slid the knife into his back._

_Those large eyes, so sad—so sincere, stared into his as he fell against the door. "Please don't die," she begged, and his head felt too light to understand what those words meant. But then he was falling, falling, and everything was hollow and empty and meaningless and quiet…_

Lost in the horror of those memories, Hikoshu didn't register the conversation between the general and the king. He didn't even register that Yan-lin had regained her composure enough to bridge the short distance between her and the throne. Only when she stopped on the other side of Gi-Luon, going to her knees in supplication, was Hikoshu freed from the terrible spell that held him.

"Your Majesty," she said into the floor.

"Avatar, have you met my daughter Yan-lin?" Gi-Luon said affably, oblivious to the turmoil her appearance had caused in him. Blinking, Hikoshu tried to focus his thoughts beyond his wild emotions, and only realized then that the air had grown unbearably hot.

"Yes, we've met," he said coldly, forcing his firebending down. He was surprised he hadn't breathed flames, though he might as well have; the heat surrounding him was almost palpable, strong enough to make them all sweat. Yet no one bothered to comment on it. As Yan-lin straightened, her gaze fixed on the floor, Du Gong stared at her fiercely, his eyes just as hot as Hikoshu's firebending. But the heat was different—it lacked the hatred that drove Hikoshu.

"Yan-lin," Gi-Luon continued, as apparently he was the only one capable of speaking, "is my only child and a lady-in-waiting to Her Majesty the Queen."

That made for two surprises to Hikoshu, one being that the king was married at all. "I thought she was a diplomat in the Northwest Territories." How he managed to say that without growling was a third surprise to him.

"His Majesty has sent more fitting diplomats to serve the Northwest Territory," Gi-Luon explained, smiling graciously at Du Gong. "Yan-lin returned to her home here in Omashu."

"I'm happy to serve His Majesty in any way he sees fit," she murmured shyly from Gi-Luon's side, her eyes still on the ground. And it sounded so unlike the Yan-lin Hikoshu remembered that it warped his disgust, making him wonder if he still hated the same person.

"General Gi-Luon's daughter is an asset to my court. A very strong asset," Du Gong said, leaning his head back on his fist. But he continued to stare at her, and Hikoshu suddenly wanted out of the room. "In fact, General, you should be dismissing her so that she might help my wife ready for the feast tonight."

"Another feast?" Hikoshu uttered with horror, before he realized how tactless such a question might be.

"Indeed," Du Gong said dully. "You might wish to attend, as well. After all, it's being thrown for a fellow Fire Nation citizen. Someone I'm sure you know." Hikoshu doubted it. He hardly knew anyone in the Fire Nation, as he hadn't lived there in ten years. But he wasn't going to disagree again; he didn't want to do anything that might prolong this audience.

"Yan-lin, if you're leaving, would you mind escorting the Avatar back to his room?" Gi-Luon looked to Hikoshu as he spoke to her. But when she started to make a sound of protest, he glanced at her sharply and her arguments immediately ceased.

Hikoshu was willing to help her out. "I appreciate the offer, General, but I'm fine with getting there myself."

"Nonsense. It would be improper for the Avatar to leave without an escort." Gi-Luon brushed off the suggestion with a smile. "I'll begin making arrangements to find you a guide to the Si Wong. In the meantime, please, enjoy your stay here and attend the feast tonight. Yan-lin will be happy to act as your escort for that, as well."

"No, that's _really_ alright." His courtesy was being strained, and if Gi-Luon continued to press Yan-lin on him, he might have to be rude. "I'm sure Her Majesty needs all of her attending ladies tonight. I…don't think I'll be going, anyhow."

"As I said, you might want to attend," Du Gong muttered, and Hikoshu glanced to him. The king's gaze was on him, burning now with pure hatred. "It's a celebration. In honor of my son's recent marriage to the Fire Princess Tala."

Hikoshu was still reeling when he finally left the throne room, and even the presence of Yan-lin at his side couldn't draw his thoughts from the king's revelation. Tala had been his friend in youth, though she was almost six years his junior. Strong, resourceful, commanding—she'd inherited all of her father's greatest qualities, while her brother Nizan had inherited the Fire Nation. Hikoshu knew very little about Nizan, so he couldn't guess why Tala was married to foreign royalty, rather than a man of the Fire Islands. Something must have happened in the intervening years, and he would have to talk to the princess to find out what.

At least those preoccupations kept his mind off of Yan-lin. She walked beside him silently, her head falling just shy of his chin. Because of that, he had to look down to study her. Her profile bore little resemblance to Gi-Luon, her features marked with the kind of feminine beauty idealized in the Earth Kingdoms. In fact, she looked an awful lot like a little porcelain figurine—fair-skinned, large eyes, prim nose, small full mouth. As tiny and as delicate as a cherished painted doll.

But to Hikoshu, she was hideous. Her beauty was about as deep as the make-up she'd worn at the party, and he knew firsthand what lay below. Her face belied the ugliness of her actions, and the more he thought about what her pristine looks hid, the more disgusted he became.

Yan-lin spoke for the first time just before they reached his room, her voice low and meek. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you last night."

"That's all you're sorry about?" He didn't care about last night. Last night was inconsequential in light of everything else she'd done to him.

"No," she said quickly, and they lapsed into silence again, neither looking at the other. "But saying I'm sorry for the past would be a little pointless now." He stopped, then, rounding on her so violently that she took a step back, as if afraid he was going to hit her. Her expression mirrored that belief.

"Tell me why I'm not burning you to a crisp right now. Tell me why I'm not taking out _four years_ of unresolved anger on you."

"I don't know!" She was frightened. He wanted to feel good about it, but all he felt was sick. "Yes, you should. Is that what you want to hear? Do you want to hear how horrible my life has been since then?"

"No, as I doubt very seriously it compares to anything I went through because of you." He hated her. He _hated_ her, and he wasn't sure what he could possibly do to her to not feel that way anymore.

"No, it doesn't," she agreed, her hands held up to him as if to shield herself. "What I did was far worse than anything you could do to me now. I know that! And I've had to live with it, consequences and all."

"What consequences?" Hikoshu gave a derisive snort. "Please, tell me about your deep suffering."

"Stop it!" The fear in her face suddenly morphed into rage, and she leaned toward him, her hands balling into fists. She actually looked on the verge of tears, which should have evoked ridicule in him but for some reason evoked only guilt. "Don't mock me! Burn me, throttle me, whatever you want, but don't mock me."

"Honestly, this whole thing's pretty much a mockery," he said heatedly, then started walking again. He could hear the soft footfalls of her shoes as she followed.

"I was young, Hikoshu. All I wanted was for you to like me, but you treated me like a child and made me feel worthless."

Hikoshu wheeled around, though he resisted the urge to mock her this time. "That's your excuse? I made you feel bad about yourself, so you told the Sages how to take my bending away from me?"

"It's not an excuse if it doesn't excuse anything." At least she looked miserable. "I'm telling you I'm not the same person anymore."

"Yeah, well, Yan-lin, I stopped trusting your word a long time ago. About the time you stabbed me in the back with a knife."

"I was trying to _save_ you."

"You failed, seeing as you killed me."

She didn't respond to that, staring back at him anxiously as he glared. Finally, tired of waiting for another excuse, Hikoshu stormed the last few paces to his door and into his room.

But his door didn't slam as he expected, given how much fury he threw into it. Glancing back, he saw that Yan-lin had caught the wood against her shoulder and entered behind him.

"What are you doing?" He was almost shaken out of his anger. "Get out! I don't want you here!"

She closed the door much more softly than he had, her expression hovering between terror and desperation. "No. We need to discuss this."

"No, we don't. Get out of here before I really get mad."

"Good! Get mad at me." She followed him into the anteroom as he searched for something to threaten her with. "Do you see I don't care? If you want to punish me, go ahead and do it. I just want it to be done."

That was enough provocation, and Hikoshu spun on her fast enough that she gave an alarmed cry. Yet the sound only came out as a strangled cough, as he latched his hand around her throat and pulled her close.

"I don't want to hurt you. I don't even want to see you. I want you out of my life for good. Got that?" When he released her, she collapsed on the ground, her hands grasping her neck, and Hikoshu for a moment feared that he really had hurt her. The absurdity of his concern was almost laughable; why would he care? After all she had done to him, why did he feel a twinge of guilt at the thought that she might be injured?

But Yan-lin didn't move, her hands falling limply into her lap, and she didn't act distressed. Eventually, Hikoshu decided she was just stunned, and his worry melted back into frustration. He was at a loss on how to respond. Leave? Hide himself in his bedroom? Running away from her seemed ridiculous, but she wasn't going to let him be. Helpless, he pulled a chair out from the table and threw himself in it. Then there was nothing to do but wait.

He wasn't sure how long they both sat there. Occasionally, Yan-lin's shoulders would heave, and he wondered if she was crying. But she made no sound and she didn't wipe at her eyes. Just watched her hands, as if she couldn't gather the energy to look up.

"Don't you have somewhere to go?" he said, unable to take the quiet anymore. His wrath had burned out, though, and all that was left was a hint of impatience. She shook her head, her eyes still trained on her hands.

"Her Majesty has many ladies-in-waiting. I'm not missed."

Hikoshu sighed as they fell back into silence and propped his jaw against his hand, his elbow resting on the table. He couldn't forgive her. Even if she sat in the middle of his room until he went insane, he still wasn't going to. But how was he to get her out, short of wrestling her to the door? He was half-tempted to do that, but the thought of touching her again—the thought of manhandling her—filled him with inscrutable self-loathing.

"So how long does this go on? Because I have dinner coming, and I didn't request enough for two."

"Don't mock me," she mumbled, her head jerking to the right. It didn't make her eyes any more visible, though, so he still had no idea if she was crying. Giving another sigh, he rubbed hard at his cheek.

"What's with you and the king? The way he was looking at you?"

"Nothing," she said hurriedly, in the same way Natquik had said "nothing." Which meant it was most certainly something, but he found he didn't care enough to pursue it this time.

"He had that same look with your father last—"

"Don't talk about my father." She didn't shout it, but she snapped the response so hard that it was essentially the same.

"Well, what else can we talk about? I'm not going sit in silence and watch you cry."

"I'm not crying."

"Then give me a subject. Please."

"I know you don't believe it, but I liked you." Yan-lin fiddled with a ring on her hand, likely to avoid seeing the scowl that Hikoshu now wore. "The few times that we weren't arguing…I'd actually hoped that we were friends." Then she pushed herself to a stand, glancing up at him from below her brow. Her eyes were red but dry, her mouth twisted in a wretched frown.

"I'll go. But I want you to know why I did it." Her voice was strong, though she kept her gaze fixed on the carpet, her hands clasped in front of her. "I told the Great Sage how to render you powerless because I was angry at you. And because I didn't…" She trailed off with a shake of her head, as if deciding that wasn't something she wanted to reveal. "I didn't think it mattered if he knew. No." Again, she shook her head. "That's a lie. I just didn't care."

Hikoshu was silent. There was nothing he could say to that—no witty retort, no bitter reply. So he listened quietly as she recounted a history he'd long since wanted to forget.

"The Great Sage manipulated my emotions. And I know—" she added quickly, as if to forestall an interruption "—I know that's not an excuse. But he did. He convinced me…convinced me that you weren't my friend. That you were using me, just like everyone else. So I didn't care if what I told him could be used to hurt you."

"It did hurt me, Yan-lin." He wasn't angry anymore. His emotions had run their course.

But she winced as if he'd screamed at her. "I know. I realized it after you found me…and you told me you were there to save me." She looked up at him, imploring, and her hands clutched her stomach as if she was struggling to keep control. "No one's ever tried to save me from anything. Even when I needed it the most."

"But you didn't need saving." Hikoshu had come to the Fire Palace in order to rescue her, but by then, she'd already betrayed him. As he discovered the next morning, when they took his bending from him.

Yan-lin shook her head fervently. "No, I did. And I know you don't believe it, but you did save me that night. I told you in the Fire Temple that I regretted everything I'd done before that evening, and I wasn't lying. But then you were in danger because of me, and I needed to save _you_."

Yan-lin had found him again that next morning. She'd convinced him that she knew a way to give him his bending back—through Natquik, the same person they had used to take it away. And then, when Hikoshu turned his back on her to enter the room where Natquik was being held...

It was almost enough to make him furious again.

"I went to everyone I could find that night, Hikoshu. I asked them what I could do to help, but they all said the same thing. They said there wasn't any hope for you." Her gaze was pleading, as if this was the part she really needed him to believe. "Then Natquik said something, that…" A hesitation. "It made me think. About what the qu-dan said. And I thought, maybe…"

Maybe if she killed him, Natquik could bring him back from the dead and his bending would be reset. The fact that it worked did nothing to mollify Hikoshu. Yan-lin didn't know what his resurrection cost him—no one knew. For it wasn't Natquik who revived him. Instead, Hikoshu owed that debt to a frightening, insect-like creature, who lived in a desolate swamp somewhere in the Spirit World. How he would repay it, he couldn't say. But he knew with certainty that someday Koh would collect.

"I wasn't going to go through with it," she continued, unaware of his dark thoughts. "Even when I helped you escape from the Sages, I wasn't going to do it. But I won't forget what you said to me. You told me you were broken, and that you had nothing left. The way you looked at me was so horrible." Her hands were pressed so tightly to her stomach that they were white, and she gulped as if she was going to be sick. "I decided then that I had to do it. And if you lived and you didn't forgive me, it didn't matter. Because you would be whole again. And if you died…" With a sharp, shuddering breath, she stopped speaking and turned quickly for the door.

By the time she reached it, she had managed to regain her composure for one last word, her back to him. "I know you don't ever want to see me again, and I wish I could give you that. The spirits know how much I wish I could give you that. But I don't really have a choice. I'm sorry." She then slipped out of the room.

Hikoshu stared at the door long after Yan-lin had left, both his mind and body raw from the confrontation. Although it likely wasn't her intention, her story had tortured him, forcing him to relive the worst moments of his life. And now that it was over, he felt battered. Barely able to conjure any emotion except pain.

Hikoshu still didn't forgive her. He wasn't entirely sure if he could. But he did know that she was right; he wouldn't have wanted to live like that. He couldn't even really call it living. Losing his bending—his spiritual connection to his previous lives—was like losing the very essence of himself. And dying would've been a mercy, if he couldn't have been saved.

At least he could thank Yan-lin for that.

* * *

**A/N: **It's possible that I didn't do a very good job relaying the events that Yan-lin was describing. And while I don't think it's absolutely necessary to know exactly what happened in the past—just that Yan-lin and Hikoshu had a very bad falling-out which has not yet resolved—I still don't want it to be so confusing that readers are saying to themselves, "Okay, I give." So any feedback on how confusing the whole chapter was is much appreciated.


	18. Ch 17: Obligation

**Chapter 17 - Obligation**

* * *

To Hikoshu, two feasts two nights in a row seemed excessively extravagant. But a short conversation with Mei-li later in the evening revealed that it was, in fact, quite common. If the king wasn't throwing some garish party, then one of the nobles in the richer districts of the city was throwing one. Though Du Gong didn't attend many parties other than his own—and even those only occasionally—the noblemen often spent a few nights a week mingling with each other. Now, Hikoshu started to see what Miyo meant by "political dinner." These parties were obviously less about having a good time and more about making important connections.

For that reason, and for a multitude of other reasons mostly stemming from Yan-lin, Hikoshu wanted to skip the feast. But the fact that the Fire Princess Tala would be there compelled him to go. He still wanted to know how she had come to Omashu when she should have remained in the Fire Nation. And besides, it would be nice to see a semi-familiar face. Maybe then he wouldn't feel so lonely.

So Hikoshu found himself, one evening later, in the same room with the same people, though his robes were now pomegranate-red instead of a deep crimson. Mei-li had said this color went better with his complexion, and he certainly took her word for it. He had found he needed her help on a lot of things, including the way to wear his robes, which led to some embarrassing banter that only made her giggle. If his mood hadn't been so appropriately dark, he might have enjoyed it, too.

Despite Mei-li's expert ministrations to his wardrobe, Hikoshu still felt like a komodo-rhino in a temple shrine. He certainly lacked the grace and etiquette that characterized even the humblest servants, and without Miyo, he was forced to survive the small-talk on his own. Fortunately, the night before had given him some practice, and though he didn't feel any more talented at it, he at least didn't feel he was humiliating himself.

Yet, despite the improved aptitude with which he handled each aristocrat, Hikoshu noticed a certain change in the tenor of their conversations. Most of them still followed the same pattern: questions regarding how much ostrich-horse breeders _should_ be charging, and what kind of compensations should be offered to farmers affected by the drought in the Southwest. But now they were laced with farther-reaching implications. Ostrich-horse breeders wouldn't charge so much if they could pull from the wild stock that the plains Nomads raised in the steppes. It would be much easier to offer new land to drought-stricken farmers from the steppes, rather than just to pay them.

Hikoshu deftly avoided those issues at first, but as the night wore on, they grew more pressing. Everyone seemed to think the relocation of the Air Nomads would solve their problems. It was as if they'd been afraid to say anything to him while Miyo was there, but now that she was gone, they were free to explain to him exactly how they could use the land more efficiently. Good fishing off the southeastern shores. Good silver mines in the mountains. Good pastureland for hog-cattle. Finally, Hikoshu grew frustrated and snapped at one man, telling him if he really needed more prairie-gopher fur, he should just raise more prairie-gophers.

That was his only outburst, for after that, no one really approached him. He was left alone for a little while, free to recuperate from his embarrassment over his rude behavior as well as enjoy the first few minutes of respite he'd had since that afternoon.

That respite ended when the last person he wanted to see approached him, her fan hiding her face again. Her robes were a color that reminded him of bay-plums, surprisingly simple compared to the other guests'. The skirt lacked form-filling layers, her belt cinched just under her breasts. Only the headdress remained elaborate, opals dangling from gold wires.

It was disconcerting, recognizing Yan-lin now for who she really was. Last night, she'd been an attractive young woman he was quite willing to spend the whole feast with. Now, she was salt to his wounds.

"I'm sorry," she murmured under her fan uncomfortably as she stood next to him. The feeling of discomfort was mutual after the display earlier, but Hikoshu wasn't about to make another scene. "My father wanted me to keep you company."

"You can tell your father I don't need company," he muttered, looking askance at her painted face.

"_You_ tell my father. I'm just following orders."

He sighed, but let her stay. At least if it appeared that he was preoccupied with her, then no one would bother him until Tala arrived. So they stood beside each other in awkward silence, broken only by the occasions he'd turn as if to talk to her when it looked like someone else was about to do the same to him.

"I heard you were searching for someone who can work with sandbenders," she said, letting her fan fall as he turned toward her once more. He could now see that her lips were done up in bright red pigment, made to look fuller and smaller.

"Yeah?"

"I can help you."

"I don't really need your help. It's why I'm here." The large man he was avoiding turned away, and so did he.

"You're relying on my father. I can assure you, my help will come much faster."

"Thanks, but I'll wait."

"You can also trust me, which isn't something you can do with my father."

Hikoshu gave a short, scornful laugh at that, his attention then pulled off of her at the sound of an arrival at the arching doors somewhere beyond the crowd.

"His Highness, of Great Filial Loyalty and Shining Virtue, Crown Prince Wei Wen, and his wife, of Great Beauty and Noble Virtue, Princess Tala of the Fire Nation." The room filled with scattered claps at the announcement, which Hikoshu supposed was for their recent marriage. He tried to peer over the heads of the patrons, but even with his height, he could see nothing.

"_Taizi_ Wei Wen was named in honor of my father," Yan-lin said, and despite his disinterest, he still glanced back at her. "Our family name of 'Wen' was given to the crown prince at birth. Then, when my mother died, His Majesty added her name: 'Wei.'"

Hikoshu didn't think he'd ever heard her mention her mother. Actually, he may not have even thought of her as having one. While speaking of her mother's death, Yan-lin wore an expression of practiced stoicism—the kind of composure created either by early loss or discarded grief, though he couldn't be sure how much emotion she really showed under the decorative paint. But then the crowd was parting, catching his attention, and Hikoshu pushed away from Yan-lin to seek out the source.

Wandering around the brightly lit figures was like searching through a forest of silk. Like trees, no two partygoers looked the same, but like the woods, they looked similar enough to lose themselves in anonymity. Caps and braided hair on the men, with narrow sleeves and tight belts. Fans and heavy headdresses for the women, their exposed inner-garments resting just above their breasts. Some smiled and tried to talk to him, but he turned away without making eye contact. He only wanted to find Tala.

Then, just as he reached the end of the room, Hikoshu saw her. At first, he couldn't tell it was Tala under the heavy make-up, her expression as blank as a porcelain doll. But as she walked past him, her hand grasping her young husband's arm, Hikoshu became certain. That striking black hair pulled up in a bun under its ornate headdress, coupled with her saffron eyes. The way she held her shoulders tight, as if prepared to strike. Just like a dragon. Like a firebender.

And like Yan-lin, Tala looked older. She'd aged four years since the last time Hikoshu had seen her, and now she stood before him, a twenty-year-old woman whose beauty had matured with her. Her paint hid the fine details, but he saw the more significant ones: her defined, bird-like features that always looked like her mother's, with the heavy brow of her father. A delicate jaw and a strong mouth which peeked out from the side of her fan. Perhaps she didn't have the fragile, ethereal feel of an Earth Kingdom girl like Yan-lin, but she had the raw, powerful beauty of a Fire Nation woman.

Seeing her made Hikoshu's heart ache with homesickness.

Tala and her husband walked through the crowd together, both wearing matching robes of loose, flowing green satin, embroidered with golden panda lilies. Seeing such a woman, who should've been adorned in fiery red and crowned with a tiara of the Flames, now wear Earth Kingdom colors was strange. But, Hikoshu admitted sadly to himself, she was no longer of the Fire Nation. He followed behind them for some distance, trying not to step on her train. Fortunately, everyone else was also giving them some room to walk, so he didn't lose her in the crowd. Only after they stopped moving, possibly to engage someone in conversation, did he step forward to tap Tala on the shoulder.

She whipped around to glare at him, offended by the impropriety. But almost the moment she saw his face, her anger melted into glee, and she threw her arms around his neck very improperly.

"Hikoshu!" she nearly squealed. "What are you doing here? Why aren't you at the South Pole? What are you wearing?" The questions barraged him as she pulled back, gazing at him with both horror and elation.

Hikoshu merely laughed, his bad mood forgotten. "What am _I_ wearing? What about you? What's with all this marriage business?" As if reminding her, she glanced back at her husband, who had turned to frown at them in mild surprise. He looked like a much healthier version of his father, up to and including a receding hairline that indicated future baldness.

"Hikoshu, I would like you to meet my husband, Prince Wei Wen." She beamed at her husband and ducked her head in deference, though Hikoshu detected a certain amount of strain in the gesture. "My Prince, this is Avatar Hikoshu. A dear friend of mine."

"It's an honor, Avatar," Wei Wen said, touching his fist to the bottom of his upright hand in substitution for a bow. "I'm glad to know my new bride has your acquaintance." Tala laughed at that—a fake, twittering laugh that filled Hikoshu with confusion and some annoyance.

"Your Highness, would you mind if I borrowed your wife for a moment? I would like to ask her about home." Even before Wei Wen agreed, he was taking Tala's free arm to guide her away.

"What is going on?" Hikoshu asked lowly as they reached the thinning edge of the crowd, somewhere between the dining tables and the ignored band. No one was feeling merry enough yet to dance, so they had the space mostly to themselves.

Tala finally let her happy façade slip away, her face drooping enough that it was obvious even below the drawn-in eyebrows. "Hikoshu, it's a long story. So much has changed since you left home."

"Well, start from the beginning."

"I can't." She threw an anxious glance behind her, as if measuring how much she was missed. "I don't have time. But simply put, my brother married me off to get rid of me."

"Get rid of you? Why?"

"It's long. And complicated." She looked miserable. Really and truly miserable, and all Hikoshu wanted to do was save her from it. "Nizan's never trusted me. He's always thought I was out to murder him. And he's gone _crazy_, Hikoshu." The grip on her closed fan tightened, her fingers blanching. "He's not even listening to Great Sage Himizu anymore, and I never thought I'd say that Himizu is the voice of reason."

The mention of Himizu, the man who orchestrated the theft of his bending, sent a ripple of hatred through him, and Hikoshu had to force the feeling away. "What's Nizan doing that's crazy?"

"So much. You have no idea." She glanced over her shoulder again, gathering up her robes. "I have to go."

"Wait!" He grabbed her arm before she could turn away. "What about Kazuo? Where is he?"

"Kazuo is now in the navy, by sponsorship of Admiral Kuzon." She wrinkled her nose in thought. "He's been assigned to the waters outside of Ba Sing Se. That's all I know." The news was disappointing; Kazuo had dedicated his whole life in service to the Fire Temple, foregoing military service to assume a role as an acolyte. His fall-out with the Temple was Hikoshu's fault, and thus was his subsequent enrollment in the navy.

"I really have to go," Tala said, drawing him from his self-reflection. "I need to be with my husband. We should talk some other time, when there aren't so many people." She spared him a sad smile, then turned to leave. But he caught her arm once more.

"You've grown up lovely." That made her smile even sadder, and she leaned in to kiss his cheek.

"Thanks, Hikoshu. You'll always be the gangly boy I fell in love with when I was ten." For good measure, she yanked on his topknot, then grabbed her robes and disappeared into the crowd.

His miserable mood was back. Hikoshu had hoped seeing a familiar face would make him feel a little less alone, but all it did was make him feel even more so. Perhaps it was his helplessness in the face of Tala's unhappiness. If he could have saved her, he would've. But not all the bending in the world could rescue her from a political marriage.

"She'll be alright."

Hikoshu glanced down to see Yan-lin at his side again. He tried hard not to scowl.

"They don't start out in love," she said, her mouth once more behind her hand-painted fan, "but they eventually come to love each other in their own way."

"And just where does _your_ experience come from?" he snapped. "Did you get married in the last four years?" Her gaze was steady, unflinching.

"This is our world. This is how it's done. My father didn't love my mother. King Du Gong didn't love Her Majesty. Princess Tala doesn't love Wei Wen. And Natquik, I imagine, doesn't love Sahani." The last name took him by surprise, causing Hikoshu to consider Yan-lin's words for the first time. He had long acknowledged that Natquik didn't want to marry Sahani, but never once had he questioned if Natquik loved her.

All because it didn't matter whether or not he did. Just like it didn't matter that Tala didn't love the Omashu prince.

"She'll be fine," Yan-lin repeated, as if that should give him some comfort. "Being married to Omashu royalty isn't so bad."

"How happy would you be about it?" he answered, glaring down at her. He didn't need her to reassure him. "About being married to someone you don't even know?"

She simply stared up at him with those large, somber eyes, the fan almost falling from her face. But then she reached up with the edge of her sleeve and wiped at his cheek where Tala had kissed him.

"I'm fine with it."

Did that mean she was already married? Or that she was going to be? Whichever it was, she didn't seem fine. And Hikoshu felt the sympathy he had for Tala turn into pity for her.

"I'm sorry, Yan-lin."

"I don't need your pity." Her voice was sharp as she looked away, her brow furrowing over her fan. "But I do need you to stand beside me, so my father will be pleased." Her request struck a note within him. It sounded so much like Tala, when she stated that she needed to be with her husband. Almost like obligation, without any joy.

He let her stand by him for the rest of the night.

When the party ended a few hours later, Hikoshu hadn't seen Tala again. Occasionally, he thought he caught a glimpse of her clothing through a window of bodies, but she stayed away from him. No one else bothered him, either, even when he was obviously not speaking to Yan-lin. Eventually, he decided they were avoiding him because of her, as the reactions of passing people shifted from bothered to just plain irritated. They wanted her to leave, but she wasn't. And so they kept their distance, glowering behind fake smiles.

At the end of the evening, Yan-lin barely hesitated when he said he was going back to his room. Bowing her head demurely, she said behind her fan, "Would the Avatar do me the honor of escorting me back to my room?"

Almost reflexively, Hikoshu started to refuse her offer. Simple courtesy, however, stopped him long enough to realize the rote, emotionless way she asked must have been born again from obligation. He could have spared her by turning her down, but the look in her eyes made him think he wouldn't be doing her any favors.

Dumbfounded that he was doing this when he didn't even like Yan-lin, Hikoshu nodded and accompanied her out of the emptying chamber.

They walked the halls silently at first, Yan-lin guiding him toward whatever part of the palace she must have called home. It was stiff and awkward, both of them obviously uncomfortable, and Hikoshu had to wonder at the invisible genius who had concerted this evening.

"Was this part of your father's plan?" he said coldly, his voice sounding distant even to him. Her fan now hidden in her sleeves, she nodded from a few steps behind him.

"You'll find the longer you stay here, the more women will be in your company. Young, unmarried women."

"All of them out of obligation?"

"For the most part. Some might have fallen in love with your fame."

Hikoshu probably should've laughed. Apparently, the same detached matchmaking that had caught up his friends in various politics was now playing at him. But the fact that Miyo had been right all along easily killed his humor.

"You don't have to do this," he said after another long pause, grabbing the attention of a passing servant in the process. "You don't want to be here, I don't want you to be here. I'm more than happy to leave you right now."

The offer brought her to a halt, making him stop as well, and when he turned to face her, her expression was blank.

"You might be the only person left in this world who can do as he wishes. The rest of us are just pawns, always moving under someone else's fingers. You shouldn't feel you have to help me. You should enjoy the freedom your role gives you."

It was the first time anyone had said he had freedom. When he was younger, Hikoshu had been convinced he was less free than any other man, bound without choice to a destiny already laid out for him. He knew his life, even if he hadn't lived it yet. It was the life of any Avatar.

But her words, and her emotionless white face, made him reconsider that. After all, Miyo was bound to her temple. Natquik was bound to his tribe. And Yan-lin was bound to walking home with him, even as he smothered her with hateful silence.

"Do you love someone, Yan-lin?" He started forward again, leaving her offer unrecognized. He wasn't going to abandon her here, even if that was really what he wanted to do. Her predicament seemed so much like Tala's that he felt helping her in this small way was similar to helping the princess.

"No." The word was somber. "It's better if I don't."

"Why?"

She took a deep breath before answering. "Because I'm going to be with someone else, anyway."

"Who is that?"

Another soul-bracing breath, her voice heavy. "Someone whom I despise just as much as you hate me. Or…at least that was the intention, until you arrived. Now my father has different plans." The last was spoken bitterly. "My room is down this hall."

The hall they stepped into looked a lot like his own, dark now except for dim lantern light between the doors. On the opposite wall, the windows were shut to the night, the world asleep beyond them.

"I won't marry you, Yan-lin, but I'll try to help you as much as I can until I leave." They came to a stop in front of the second door, and he turned to face her. "It's unfortunate you don't love someone. I would've used all of my authority to have you marry him, instead."

The way she stared at him was sad—almost tragic, and Hikoshu was taken aback by how large her eyes were. For a moment, he feared she would start crying, and part of him scrambled for a way to prevent it. But she didn't cry, instead clasping his hand.

"Thank you, Hikoshu. That really does mean a lot." When he started to pull his hand free, she held tight, her eyes intense and her grip strong. "But I'm not here because my father told me to be here. I made a promise years ago that I would do everything in my power to help you, with no hope that it would make up for everything I'd done. There isn't someone else because there can't be someone else. I'm dedicated to you."

Hikoshu stepped back, finally wrestling his hand from her. Unbelievable. He was reeling, as if punched, so shocked by the admission that he couldn't even ask her what she meant.

"It doesn't mean I'm in love with you," she provided during his dumbstruck silence. Despite her denial, Hikoshu still needed a moment to regain his wits and gather his jaw from the floor. "But if everything I do is in your best interests, then loyalties to anyone else might conflict with that. So I'm telling you now, there is no one in this palace that you can trust as much as I. There is no one else willing to do whatever it takes to help you."

She was so vehement in her vow, her eyes so desperate, that for a second he thought that she might actually be serious. But after all they had been through together, Hikoshu knew it would take far more than earnest sincerity for him to ever believe in her again.

"Good night, Yan-lin." He left her at her door.

* * *

**A/N: **I'd like to note (before anyone points it out) that male pattern baldness is sex-linked recessive. Meaning that it's inherited through the mom. But I don't think Mendelian genetics have been fully recognized in the Avatar world yet, so I didn't feel too off by suggesting an old way of thinking on the subject.


	19. Ch 18: What Lies Below

**Chapter 18 - What Lies Below**

* * *

Two days passed without another word from Yan-lin or Tala. In fact, in those two days, the only person Hikoshu talked to was Mei-li. She was oddly reserved, her mood dark as she brought him his meals and helped him with his clothes. She also staunchly avoided all questions he had about her life, which only made him even more curious. There seemed to be something below the surface of the Omashu Court that was corrupted—a layer of perversion that he was just glimpsing. The fact that Tala had been dragged into it was bad enough. The fact that she implied something similar was happening in the Fire Nation made it even worse.

So Hikoshu pressed Mei-li with questions, despite her stiff refusal to answer them. Where had she grown up? How did she become a servant to the king? Where was her family? The most she gave him was that she came from the Tenth District, which—he eventually learned—was a section set toward the bottom of the mountain city. The higher-numbered district meant she was somewhere between middle and lower class. She also admitted that she had come to the palace when her father was promoted by General Hanpiang. Promoted to what, she didn't say, but it seemed to be the only way to rise from the lower levels. She was tight-lipped about everything else, such as where her family lived or what she thought of the palace in comparison to city life.

The rest of the two days Hikoshu spent exploring the palace. The building, from what he gathered, was a complex maze of corridors that both encircled and skewered the peak of the city. Most of the hallways led into the stone mountain, where the offices of ministers, administrators, and lesser officials were housed. These windowless sections hosted the daily decision-making that kept Omashu going, and the men who populated them wore dark-green robes and excessively tall hats, ink stains smudging their fingers.

The halls that snaked along the terraces of the mountain seemed to be the living quarters of the aristocratic elite. These halls, much like his, were lit with windows opening on to mountain vistas and bordered by gardens of ancient trees now changing colors. The spaces were wider, more airy, with atria at the intersections that meant even the most reclusive would have to go outside in order to traverse the wings.

Then at the peak of the city were the king's living quarters. Du Gong's family lived there, as well as the noblest of the noblewomen, and Hikoshu imagined that Tala would be in that section, too. He wasn't allowed to explore it, though. As Mei-li told him, it'd be an affront to the Omashu royalty. Eventually, he'd exhausted the potential hallways he _could _search and seen every dim-lit corridor within the mountain. Yet he suspected there was a lot more he'd missed.

The only things that broke disagreeably through the monotony of those two days were the nights—both nights, in which he was chased by nightmares that he barely understood. They played out the same as his first night in Omashu, with a murky underwater world where someone who was him but not-him clung to the ice in terror of what lay above and below. She was caught in limbo, and Hikoshu felt with certainty that if he could only understand the limbo which held her, he'd know what her spirit was doing in the mortal world.

He never figured it out. Both mornings, he woke up drenched in sweat as the abyss claimed her body, and something else claimed her soul. And it left him wondering who was sending him these dreams. Were they trying to give him a message? Or, as Avatar, was he simply capturing fragments of the spirit's memory? Yet the nightmares provided no answers, and he dreaded the evening, when he'd be plunged into the lake again.

On the third day after Miyo and Natquik had left, Hikoshu heard a knock at the door of his anteroom and answered it, thinking Mei-li had come to clean breakfast from the table. Instead, he was greeted by a man with thin brown whiskers growing to the angle of his jaw and a long, skinny braid that only accentuated his receding hairline.

The latter reminded him that this was Prince Wei Wen, and he stepped back so that the prince could enter.

The man had to be about Hikoshu's age, if not a bit younger, and he marched into the room in heavily-used boots and brown wool leisure robes, which shifted as he bowed at the waist. "Master Avatar. I hope you're in good health."

"I suppose," he said suspiciously, shutting the door behind him. No one had paid a visit to his room since Miyo left, and certainly no one of any standing. "And you?"

"My health is just fine, thank you." Wei Wen straightened and began a quick perusal of the room, as if inquiring about his health had been a disguised invitation to make himself at home. Hikoshu noticed that he carried a bow and capped quiver over his shoulder.

"My men and I were just about to go into the mountains for some sport. I wanted to invite you to come along, as I imagine you've been held up in this room for some time." He brushed his fingers across a desk idly, squinting at the colorful tapestries.

"I'm not much of a hunter."

That gave Wei Wen pause, and he glanced back at Hikoshu before setting his bow and quiver on the desk.

"Tala said the same thing, though I thought perhaps the Water Tribes had changed your mind." Then, without permission, he sat on a red-upholstered couch next to the desk. "Come, Avatar, have a talk with me."

"My name's Hikoshu." His guard was up as he pulled a chair away from the table, setting it across from him. As far as Hikoshu knew, there was nothing the two had to talk about. And the man seemed so eerily like Du Gong that Hikoshu didn't think there was anything he _wanted_ to talk about.

"Hikoshu, then." He crossed one leg over the other, cupping his hands against his knee. "You knew my wife back in the Fire Nation."

"I knew the Royal Household, yes."

"Can you tell me about her? What she was like?" Wei Wen leaned forward, and Hikoshu automatically pulled back, despite the notable distance between them.

"I'm…not sure. I haven't seen her since she was a girl." Though he knew it might be rude, Hikoshu felt compelled to add, "Surely you know your own wife better than I do."

Wei Wen gave a thoughtful hum as he looked to the one open window, his dark, weighing eyes very much like his father's. "I barely know my wife at all. She's been…reticent toward me, and I was hoping to learn a little more about her in order to work past that."

Uneasy, Hikoshu shot a quick glance at the door, hoping for Mei-li to interrupt. Likely, though, she'd been dismissed by Wei Wen before he even came in.

"She's quite fond of you."

Hikoshu dragged his gaze back to the prince. "Yes, Her Highness was partial to me when she was young."

"Were you two ever intimate?"

Hikoshu was horror-stricken. Enough that it took a moment just to respond, his mouth twitching over unformed words. "Uh, no…no. As I said, she was a child." She still was a child to him. No marriages or amount of make-up were going to change that.

If Wei Wen was embarrassed by Hikoshu's deeply offended tone, he gave no sign of it. He just hummed again and studied Hikoshu with that strange, weighing look.

"I want to bring her around to me, but I don't know what would seduce a Fire Nation woman. Are there any firebender techniques you could share—" The conversation was simply too uncomfortable, and Hikoshu started to stand, grabbing for any excuse to end it.

"Your Highness, I'm sorry, but I really don't think—"

"How many uncles does she have?"

Hikoshu blinked at the question, slowly returning to his seat. "I'm…sorry?"

"Or aunts, I suppose," he added absently, though with far less interest than he'd expressed in her uncles.

"Um…" It was hard for Hikoshu to say. Not that he didn't know, but because the Fire Nation line was so intricately tied with his own history as the Avatar that to mention it at all was to talk about himself. "Two uncles. One aunt." Hikoshu was baffled Wei Wen didn't know all of this already. The Fire Nation line was at the forefront of global politics, after all. In fact, not too long ago, that very same line had defined the fate of the world.

One of Tala's uncles, Zenshi, had been the bane of the four nations, more despised a figure of history than the Avatar. That uncle had once been the Fire Prince, heir to the Dragon Throne. But then he took the Water Tribe Princess as his wife by force, and the resultant war had drawn in every country. The Southern Water Tribe and Rajio Bay. The massacre of the Western Air Temple. The subsequent sanctions created by the Avatar and placed on the Fire Nation for the massacre, then on Omashu for aiding in the ambush of Rajio Bay.

It was Wei Wen's history, and his obvious ignorance surprised Hikoshu.

"So she has two uncles," Wei Wen continued, counting on his fingers, "and one brother. Does that include her mother's family?"

"I don't know much about Fire Lady Ta—I mean her mother's family." Tala's mother, her namesake, had died giving birth to her before Hikoshu knew he could firebend. Before he had even left the fishing village of Tansasi.

"Any miscarriages? Stillbirths?"

"Your Highness, I don't know." Hikoshu was coming to the end of his tolerance of the conversation, and he allowed his impatience to show. "Why are you asking me this and not her?"

"As I said, she hasn't quite opened up to me yet." Now Wei Wen reclined back on the couch, folding his arms behind his head. "I'm interested in knowing how fertile of a wife she might be. Women of Fire Nation stock do not seem to be good breeders."

"Good breeders?" Hikoshu was too stunned by the insult to be mad. Wei Wen finally noticed his mistake, however, and sat up quickly in apology.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like that." Then, sitting back again, he added, "I'm sure Fire Nation women produce many fine babies."

"Tala's not a mill, designed to give you heirs." Anger seethed in his chest, flowing with his _chi_ through his arms. But he kept it in check, only letting it slip into his voice.

"I'm sorry, Hikoshu, I didn't mean to imply that." But Wei Wen didn't seem nearly as sorry for the real insult as he had been for the one the prince imagined. "I just don't know that much about her yet. It will take time to learn."

"Well, if you want a good start, you should talk to her first."

"Oh, I will, to be sure." Wei Wen gazed at the window, as if considering how much he should confide in Hikoshu. "I'm glad to know my wife has such a good friend in the Avatar. Someone who obviously has her best interests at heart."

Hikoshu only wished he could say the same for her husband. No, he wasn't surprised. He knew the point of political marriages was to seal alliances and produce heirs. But the thought that someone like Tala might be married to someone like _this _unnerved him.

"My father is reaching the end of his reign," Wei Wen continued, oblivious to the ill look Hikoshu made no effort to disguise. "As his oldest son, I'll be in charge of Omashu one day. And I need to make sure that my wife is capable of providing me an heir."

The offhanded comment puzzled him. Du Gong hardly looked old enough to be at risking of dying. Why, then, did Wei Wen imply he was? Hikoshu thought back to the king's unhealthy look, and how such an able-bodied man seemed so unfit. Perhaps he really was nearing the end of his life. Or perhaps someone was pushing him in that direction.

"You'll protect my wife, won't you?" Wei Wen suddenly asked, and Hikoshu stared at him in confusion. "You'll make sure that she is safe?"

"Is she in danger?"

"The heir to a throne is always in danger, and subsequently are those he cares about."

"Are you asking me to protect her, or are you asking me to protect you?"

"Isn't it one and the same?"

That resulted in a tense silence. Hikoshu's palms hurt, and he looked down to see the prints of his nails cutting into the skin, marking his frustration. Wei Wen, on the other hand, seemed completely at ease, as if they were having a casual afternoon chat. It was only when the silence dragged out to a point that was racking Hikoshu's nerves that Wei Wen finally stood, grabbing his hunting gear.

"I should be going. They'll only wait so long at the stables for me. But I'm glad we could talk some." He gave a deep bow just as Hikoshu stood up, and then he was walking quickly to the door. Opening it, the prince paused just on the threshold and threw him one last curious look. "I trust you're coming to the Snow-Pass Festival tonight?"

"Snow-Pass Festival?" he asked with more than a little trepidation.

"It's a traditional holiday in Omashu. You should come join Tala and I. It should be quite an event." Then, with a grin and a wink, he disappeared through the door, pulling it shut behind him.

Honestly, Hikoshu had little desire to go to any more parties, however traditional they were. But something about the idea of Tala being there alone made him feel like he should be there, too, if at least to watch over her. So again, he dressed himself in the thick wool robes Mei-li had left him—stifling, but still much to his great relief, as silk had quickly become his least favorite fabric. Then he waited for the servant girl to help him with the final details.

Yet it wasn't Mei-li who appeared at his door. Instead, Yan-lin had come.

She was already wearing her finery for the evening—some pale green robes, also made of wool—but her headdress was missing, replaced with a simple bone comb lacquered with hand-painted flowers. Even her make-up was thinner, less extravagant.

"I'm helping you tonight," she said shortly, pulling her train through the door before shutting it.

"What happened to Mei-li?" He was not happy with this arrangement, but instead of answering him, she began to undo his belt. "Hey—wait!"

"She's with her family this evening. It's the Snow-Pass Festival," Yan-lin explained patiently, pushing back his hands as he tried to force her off of him. "I'm just fixing the knot, hold on."

"Then why are you here? Why not another servant?" Wincing, he gave a grunt as she yanked it tight.

"Because they all have families too?" She glanced up at him from below two perfectly-curled locks of hair as she finished the tie, then grasped his wrist. "All palace servants are either at home or preparing for the festivities. I didn't think you'd want to make one of them stop to attend specifically to your needs."

"Is that why you aren't so dressed up tonight?"

Yan-lin didn't answer him as she carefully folded his sleeve, flattening and rolling with precision. Her fingers flashed across the woven fabric, as nimble as Mei-li's and just as quick, as if she'd been a servant in her own time. In moments, a perfect roll of wool hemmed his sleeve, a lighter, softer blue than the rest of his robe.

As she finished one hand and moved to the other, Yan-lin finally responded. "The Snow-Pass Festival is about austerity. To symbolize how little we have during the dead of winter."

"This isn't austere," he said, his eyes on her bun, held together with two jade pins.

"Well, not much about the Omashu Court is." Glancing around, she spied a squat, brimless hat lying on an end table, which she quickly retrieved and beat back into shape. "Duck down."

"I don't wear hats." The last hat he'd worn was that of a Fire Sage, and he intended to keep it that way.

Yan-lin almost seemed insulted. "It's traditional."

"I said I don't wear hats."

"Fine," she sighed, tossing the felt cap onto the couch. "Then bend down so I can braid your hair."

"What's wrong with my topknot?" He knew he was being stubborn, but giving in to too many changes made him feel somehow traitorous. Especially with Yan-lin advocating them.

"Nothing's wrong, it's just not fashionable."

"I don't _need_ to be fashionable."

"Hikoshu," she began, and then cut off as she stared him down. They stood there for several tense moments, trying to silently force the other into submission. Then she threw up her hands and took his elbow, leading him toward the door.

"Fine. Just don't blame me if you stick out."

The festival, in contrast to the previous two evenings, was held outside in a palace garden. Unlike the garden by his room, however, this one was significantly larger and much more geometrical in plan. Perfectly straight walkways of gravel outlined the deep verandas, and paths zigzagged throughout the garden, framing beds of dying greenery and leading to an ornate, statuesque gazebo in the center. Trees along the paths would've provided shade during the summer, but now stood half-denuded, their bare branches stretching past the second-story verandas to touch the sharply-angled roofs. Green paper lanterns hung from their limbs, casting a hazy light on the evening.

Hikoshu stood at the head of stairs that split and descended from that second story, his eyes unenthusiastically locked on the people mingling over the gravel walks. The women, he realized, were dressed very much like Yan-lin, with pale, billowy robes of wool and their hair done up in simple combs. And the men, much like him, wore stuffy blue garments replete with black caps similar to the one he'd refused. Their voices rose as a dull murmur, collected and then augmented by the walls that enclosed the garden, as servants darted among the gathered groups with trays of finger foods and drinks. Some guests had even taken seats on the green around one of the two fountains that crowned either end of the square, as if this were a picnic rather than late evening.

Holding close to his arm, Yan-lin explained details as they took one branch of the elaborate stone staircase to the walkway. "There's no fire until midnight, so don't firebend. The food is almost raw, so keep that in mind if you eat any meat. If you drink anything, pour a little in the grass first. If someone asks where your cap is, say you lent to it a servant. If you try—"

She stopped abruptly at the sound of Wei Wen's voice, as the prince—dressed the same as him—emerged from the obscurity of guests.

"Hikoshu! I'm glad you made it." He snatched Hikoshu from Yan-lin's confidence and pulled him away as if they were the best of friends now. Hikoshu glanced back at her in surprise, then let the prince lead him across the pathway with an arm around his shoulder. "Come, I want you to do something for me."

Hikoshu wasn't sure he was going to like it, and became even surer he wouldn't when Wei Wen tugged him onto the green, to a spot just in front of the fountain. Now, from ground level, the stone fountain towered above him, its marble serpent twisting on itself in thick coils that consumed most of the basin, a jet of water spraying from its mouth to shower down on its lazily wrapped body. The rivulets trickling over its scales glistened in the lantern light of the trees, as if the serpent were alive.

Hikoshu had only a moment to examine the craftsmanship before the earth that they stood upon shot a few feet into the air, nearly throwing him off-balance. Wei Wen caught him by his shoulder, smiling brightly at the crowd from their newly-formed stump.

"Dear guests and subjects! I believe many of you have had the chance to meet the Avatar, who arrived not long ago to tour our grand city!"

Hikoshu tried to pull from his grip, but Wei Wen held tight, raising his own arm with a flourish. In response, the people seated nearest them cheered delightedly in good spirits, produced either by wine or by celebration.

"Tonight," Wei Wen continued, his voice as boisterous as any true showman, "we've come together to remember what we have lacked in the past. Food. Water. Warmth. But it is also a time to rejoice in what good fortune has brought us. And in an exceptional display of generosity and good will, the Avatar has agreed to contribute to our merriment with a modest demonstration of those skills known only to him."

Hikoshu stared at him so hard, he almost didn't hear the excited applause from the crowd. It would've been one thing had he asked and Hikoshu refused. But he hadn't even asked. Wei Wen made no apology for his actions, simply grinning at Hikoshu like they were old friends.

He should've just jumped down from the makeshift stage. Should've just looked for Tala, talked to her, and then left. But the people fell silent in anticipation, and Wei Wen patted him on the back, then hopped off himself. So now Hikoshu was alone, hundreds of eyes all on him.

He briefly considered making excuses to escape his unsolicited predicament. But Hikoshu was far more intimidated at the prospect of speaking in front of the audience than he was at simply bending in front of them. So feeling more than a little strong-armed into it, he took a deep breath and glanced to the fountain behind him. Per Yan-lin's instructions, he couldn't firebend, and that was unfortunately his strongest element. However, he didn't really need to be a strong waterbender; he just needed to look like he was.

"Well...," he began, facing the expectant audience again. In the meantime, guests on the other side of the garden had become curious and crowded closer to watch, easily doubling the size of his spectators. If he'd needed to make a speech, Hikoshu was certain the nerves would've frozen him in place. But anxiety was never a problem when it came to putting on a show.

So he swept his left leg and arm forward, his right arm swinging back in a sickling motion to poise his hand high and flat over his head, palm upward. In response, he felt the serpent's water jet shoot twice as high, curving at its peak to course downward directly at him.

Hikoshu paused as the water halted just above his head, rolling on itself as it formed a giant, twisting sphere over his outstretched hand. He waited for the appropriate gasp from the audience, which was appropriately impressed, too. Then, swallowing a self-satisfied smile, he snapped his arms apart and separated the water into two streams.

Hikoshu lost himself in the water after that. Like ribbons, the streams flickered around him, invisible except for the pinpoints of light that danced through the rippling arcs. They curved and swooped, flying low over people's heads and then sprinting high above the trees. Yet always they were under Hikoshu's control, encircling him as if he formed the very heart of the water. The guests, unable to tear their eyes away, watched with quiet fascination as he split the streams into three, their silence only broken by collective sighs and the occasional clap.

To Hikoshu, the water resembled dragons, their sleek bodies entwining each other, their heads gliding gracefully forward as their tails whipped in dangerous implication. Many in the audience had likely never seen dragons, and so didn't know the beauty these streams merely imitated. To them, the water must have looked _alive_, as if Hikoshu—rather than controlling it—had actually instilled life. How unsurprising, he mused, that the Avatar had once been viewed as a spiritual creator. In an ancient world, where the thought of bending other elements was just as foreign as the lands outside their neighboring villages, the nations must have seen the Avatar's powers as something closer to magic.

In his philosophical ruminations, Hikoshu forgot reality. For a moment, he was taken out of the garden—out of the Earth Kingdom and the world, and in that fleeting moment, all of the spirituality that he'd abandoned since his youth in the Fire Temples suddenly filled him. Perhaps their ancestors had been right; perhaps the Avatar was in essence a spiritual creator. Perhaps it wasn't a matter of bringing life to the inanimate, but being able to recognize the life that was already there…

Hikoshu let his eyes skim over the crowd, absently anticipating their reactions at a particular move but more interested in studying them. They were mesmerized, and he wondered if the performance was evoking in them the same contemplations that it had caused in him, or if it was just a pretty distraction, as entertaining as the music or the lanterns. At that moment, his eyes landed on Yan-lin, standing next to one of the walkways with a preoccupied frown, and his deep thoughts were stripped away as he was jerked back to reality. Half-forgotten, one of the streams fell out of its mid-air spiral.

Hikoshu caught it just before it hit him, sweeping its momentum sideways and into a nearby group of onlookers, who gave surprised shrieks as they dove out of way. With a gasp, he called it back with both arms, only to remember the other streams still hissing through the air above him. Twisting around, he hurled the first arc of water at the second, letting them smash into each other, and then into the third. The resultant collision sounded as if a wave had hit the garden, and water rained down.

Of all of the maneuvers he'd performed that night, Hikoshu knew this one was the hardest: pulling that much scattered water, falling chaotically, back to him before it could touch the ground. It required perfect concentration and utter control over every droplet, and Hikoshu barely had time to exercise both. Yet with skill that impressed even himself, he swept his arms outward and then toward his body in quick, successive moves, and the tiny raindrops enveloped him in a shroud of mist. Now sweating, he coalesced the mist back into its original sphere of water, which he then sent surging back into the fountain basin. A moment later, the water jetted from the serpent's mouth, as if untouched.

The audience burst into cheers and claps, and Hikoshu—chest heaving and mind still racing—gave a bow. Yet he suspected their appreciation was mostly for the body of the performance, rather than the far more remarkable ending. The thought thoroughly galled him. Shaman Kinu would have been impressed. Maybe. But still, he found it nice for a change to be held in awe for something he was really talented at, rather than for the person he was supposed to be.

Hikoshu clambered off of the earthen dais with a heady grin and a feeling of pride, and was immediately greeted with a rush of guests eager to express their own delight. He beamed and thanked them, though before he could bask too much, Wei Wen appeared by his side and wrapped an arm around him again.

"Wonderful, Hikoshu! Absolutely amazing." Then he swept Hikoshu away to receive the praise of a whole new group of strangers.

Hikoshu had wanted to find Tala when he first entered the garden, but with the more people he met, the less he thought about her. There were no political discussions tonight; instead, the aristocrats joked and laughed, enjoying each other's company rather than vying for personal favors. And they introduced him to their daughters, too. Young, attractive daughters, who now wore so little make-up that he could distinguish between them. The girls came up to him with their fathers or with friends, and they complimented his bending with giggles into their sleeves and coy glances over the lace. So much did he enjoy the attention and the warmth of popularity that Hikoshu briefly forgot the warning Miyo and Yan-lin had given him.

He only had eyes for the pretty girls.

Tala found him toward the end of the night, as he was impressing three young women with a leaf and some airbending. She was wearing the traditional green wool robes—representing spring and fertility, one nobleman's daughter had explained with a flirtatious smirk—which had been hemmed in gold, and her hair cascaded in curled, ebony locks from two artistically-carved bone combs.

Seeing her reminded Hikoshu of his original intention for attending the party, and guilt filled him as he excused himself from the company of the women.

They walked along the gravel path together, a few guests choosing to give reverent bows as they passed. Tala didn't seem to see any of it, her eyes focused on the white stones below her slippered feet. Studying her profile, Hikoshu marveled again at how little she resembled the other aristocratic wives. To him, she looked twice as strong as any man there, and he knew her looks weren't all that deceiving.

"I'm glad you came tonight," she said after a comfortable silence. "My husband said you would."

Hikoshu noted her subdued expression—far different from the fiery young girl of his past—and suddenly all of the reasons why he had begun to dislike Omashu came back to him. "Well, I thought you might be here."

"You've been enjoying yourself."

"Yeah. No one's talking politics for once."

Tala laughed at that, and then they fell quiet. He had a thousand questions to ask her, but now he found he'd rather not. He didn't want to make her any unhappier, and if the life she left was so much worse than this, Hikoshu was certain questions about their home would ruin whatever was left of her evening.

"Your bending display was nice," she finally said.

"It wasn't firebending, but I guess it would do." Again, she laughed. "I talked to your husband earlier today."

"Oh?" Tala didn't seem all that interested. As if they were talking about a mutual acquaintance she barely knew.

"He invited me to go hunting."

"Yes. He does love to hunt." The laugh disappeared from her face, and Hikoshu suspected he'd just ruined her evening without really trying. So he might as well ask her what he wanted to know.

"Tala, what has Fire Lord Nizan done?"

She looked to him in surprise at the question. No, not surprise. She knew he was going to ask. It was more like dread.

But as she opened her mouth to respond, a man stepped in front of them and blocked their way. Hikoshu pulled up short at the stranger, whose bulky uniform proclaimed him to be a soldier. He wore blue, but scalloped pauldrons of green metal framed his shoulders, nearly touching the wide brim of his standard soldier's hat, and the stiff wool across his chest strained over unseen armor. He gave them a rigid-backed bow of deep respect, and Tala's expression flitted with worry.

"Master Avatar? His Majesty wishes that you would join him."

Hikoshu hadn't yet seen Du Gong that evening, and therefore had assumed he wasn't present. And that was just fine with him; Hikoshu had found the night far more pleasant with the thought that he wouldn't run into the king. So reluctantly, he gave a short bow to Tala and murmured "my princess" in a way that made her smile. Then he followed the soldier with his own sense of dread.

The reason for Du Gong's distinct absence was because he had chosen to hide himself from the festivities. As Hikoshu was led to the opposite side of the garden, where a second serpent-fountain towered, he saw a gathering of dark figures within one of the verandas. They were servants and retainers, forming a patchwork of blue as they surrounded Du Gong, who was seated on a narrow, gilded-wood throne. The throne itself was part of a sedan, as if the servants had carried him bodily into the garden, causing Hikoshu to wonder if Du Gong ever walked anywhere on his own. Currently, he sat back in the chair, the beard around his mouth warped with his frown, his eyes glazed with boredom. His chin was tucked against his chest, almost like an obstinate child.

As Hikoshu approached, he lifted his eyes to stare at him from below his brows. It gave him an ominous, deadly look, his black hat set low on his forehead to shadow his expression darkly, and with a sudden sense of danger, Hikoshu decided to stand outside of the veranda. There, the king considered him, his ringless-hand plucking thoughtlessly at the thin wood arms of his chair.

"Come," Du Gong muttered, getting to his feet. "Let's walk."

Even standing straight, Du Gong was half a head shorter than Hikoshu, though he supposed his height was a little closer to average for an Earth Kingdom man. He looked swallowed in his blue garment, the scratchy wool sitting poorly on his frame, and his cap covered almost all of his bald pate. With a moody glower, he stared at the path they followed, his unadorned beard brushing the top of his chest.

"You're not wearing a cap," Du Gong eventually said, just as Hikoshu decided he wouldn't speak at all.

"I gave it to a servant who didn't have one," he answered, and that seemed to satisfy the king well enough. Glancing over his shoulder, Hikoshu noticed three soldiers, dressed similarly to the one earlier, who followed them at a distance.

"I saw you with my son," Du Gong continued, failing to notice Hikoshu's uneasy frown. The people they passed gave far deeper bows than they had for Tala, some going to their knees, but they retreated when the guards walked by. "During your display."

"He asked me to waterbend," Hikoshu lied. "I just obliged." Du Gong grunted as if he didn't necessarily believe that but didn't care to argue, and swept his lengthy robe free of the nobles who came too close.

"My son is very aware of those who are important to him. He knows who would be a great asset." Du Gong seemed to be talking of something more than just Hikoshu, and he stared at the king askance. His eyes were distant, brooding, and he tangled his fingers into his loose beard almost like a nervous habit.

"Was that what Your Majesty wished to speak with me about?"

"I also saw you with General Gi-Luon's daughter." Du Gong entirely avoided his question, or perhaps didn't even register it. "You two came in together."

"Yes," he said doubtfully. "She helped me to find the garden."

"She also recognizes the people who are important to her. The most successful in Omashu always know who their friends should be." Again, Hikoshu sensed that Du Gong was implying far more than he spoke. So he simply didn't respond.

They stopped walking once they reached the other end of the garden, near the water fountain where Hikoshu had performed. Du Gong then led him off of the path, onto the green where the groups who had watched his bending earlier had long since dispersed, and where now only a few couples chose to escape to a quiet interlude. Behind them, the three soldiers also stepped across the bushes lining the walkway, but went no further.

"You see her," Du Gong suddenly said, touching his arm to get his attention. Hikoshu turned toward the center of the garden, where the gazebo stood. Dozens of people milled there, some standing in clumps, others seated under the gabled eaves of the pavilion. "Among her ladies-in-waiting." Of the groups, there was one quite a bit larger than the others. Composed mostly of women, the focus seemed to be on one particular woman in the midst of the cluster. From that distance, Hikoshu could see little other than her hair, which stood high on her head in a very ostentatious design, golden chains that were woven through the braids flashing as she spoke.

"Her Majesty?" he hazarded, and Du Gong nodded, his mouth hard.

"Wei Wen's mother. My wife."

At this revelation, Hikoshu studied her more closely. A woman of some thirty years, she looked just as worn as Du Gong, as if the unending series of parties had slowly leeched the life out of her. Yet unlike Du Gong, her spirit showed none of the same overuse. She laughed cheerily among her servants, unaware that they were speaking about her. But with the way Du Gong glared at her, she could have been snarling.

"She's a lovely woman," Hikoshu commented.

"She wants me dead." His words were blunt and infused with pure hatred, the kind spared only for the vilest human beings. "She wants her son on the throne."

"I…" Hikoshu had nothing to say to that, and he stumbled for some tactful response.

"No need to reassure me, Avatar, I'm fully aware of my wife's loathing. And I loathe her just as much."

"But…she's your wife. The mother of your child." He spoke in disbelief, rather than protest. Unable to comprehend how such hate could have any place in a marriage.

"She might be my wife, but she isn't important to me." Du Gong didn't even look at him, his eyes fixed quite firmly on that group of women. "She's never been important to me."

In the pause that ensued, Hikoshu struggled to find the words that would get him out of this conversation—out of this scene, which was almost suffocating in the face of the king's uncontrolled hostility. He knew that he was now glimpsing what really lay below the apathy Du Gong always faked; the animosity that festered in him must have eaten away at his energy to care about anything else.

"Not like General Gi-Luon," Du Gong finally continued, preventing his escape. "Gi-Luon has always been important to me. A great asset to Omashu, to me."

"Where is the general tonight?" Hikoshu hurriedly changed the subject, but Du Gong ignored his attempts.

"He was a lieutenant when I met him. Before I was king. Before I married _her_." Though his stare never moved from the noblewomen, its nature changed. Burning, passionate. Almost insane. "And he was so much more to me, then as now. He married Lady Wei out of necessity. Grew to love her. While I stayed with my queen and grew to hate her."

"Your Majesty, it's almost midnight," Hikoshu said, wanting to distract him. Because the look in Du Gong's eyes now scared him on a very primal level, and his shoulders ached with building anxiety.

But Du Gong didn't hear him, too lost in his memories. "Before Wei died, Gi-Luon was more devoted to her than he'd ever been to me or Omashu. But her death was a great boon for our country. He came back to us—stronger, fiercer, more dedicated. He brought this nation prosperity and glory."

The sound of the king's revelry in someone else's suffering made Hikoshu shudder. "I'm sure her death must have been very hard on the general. Very hard on everyone."

"None like his daughter," Du Gong answered, and for a moment, Hikoshu thought he'd returned to the present moment. But he didn't look up, and Hikoshu followed his gaze back to the group that surrounded the queen. Yan-lin stood among the ladies-in-waiting, her head bobbing in time to an unheard conversation, and suddenly, Hikoshu's stomach clenched.

"You see her." Du Gong grabbed Hikoshu's arm again, jerking him around so he faced the group. "You see her there with my wife."

"Yes, I see her," he muttered as he pulled himself out of the king's grip.

"Of course you do." Du Gong shot him a spiteful glare. "I know how you stare at her. She's lovely, isn't she? She looks just like her mother, you know. Her full, long hair. The same delicate build, with all the same curves."

"Your Majesty," Hikoshu interjected sharply, his stomach turning again. More offensive than his words, however, was his gaze that burned far too hotly.

"But she has her father's eyes. Heartless eyes." He was lost again in his thoughts, his expression unfathomably complex. It flickered from desire one moment to desperation in the next, and then to hatred. The only constant of each was his intensity. "She reminds me of her father. She's a brilliant tactician and a gifted politician. She has her father's talents. As well as his faults." Once more, he grabbed Hikoshu's arm, never tearing his eyes from Yan-lin. "She has no morals, Avatar. She lies, manipulates, controls. And she uses her femininity to do it. Her father raised her well."

Hearing such a description of Yan-lin sent a wave of revulsion through him, because it too closely echoed the opinion he held of her himself. The fact that the king agreed with him did nothing to assuage his thoughts, but rather made him disgusted he ever had them. Frowning, Hikoshu watched Yan-lin as she talked with one of the women next to the queen. Unaware of their conversation. Unaware of the look Du Gong wore.

"But I can see how you stare at her," he said, releasing Hikoshu. "You don't care. You're already taken by her, just like every other fool in the world. She'll use you, you know. She'll use you and abandon you for another. And you will be forced to endure it because you love her. Because you've always loved her, and she promised you everything."

Du Gong wasn't talking about Yan-lin. Or maybe he was. Hikoshu wasn't sure anymore. But the words still resonated with him, after the vow Yan-lin had made the other night. She'd promised to do everything to help him, and maybe despite himself, he'd started to believe her.

From his dark thoughts, Hikoshu heard Du Gong continue in his half-mad rant. "But she'll give me everything one day. I've waited on that promise more years than she's been alive." His low voice made the hairs rise on the back of Hikoshu's neck.

"What are you saying?"

He didn't answer, raising his hand instead. Immediately, one of the soldiers near the path approached them, his expression betraying no knowledge of their conversation or of the king's intentions.

"Bring daughter Wen to me," he commanded. The guard gave a bow and then made straight for the group which still held Du Gong's attention.

"Your Majesty, this is insane." Hikoshu didn't know what Du Gong was going to do, but he didn't want it done. Not when he was staring like that.

In response, he grabbed his wrist and dragged him close. "I know you want her, Avatar."

"I don't even like her," he snapped, prying his arm loose.

And then Yan-lin was coming toward them, a polite smile plastered across her face as she neared. Hikoshu wanted to tell her to leave, to stay away from Du Gong, but the king seized his elbow roughly, hard enough to pull him off-balance. By the time he recovered, she had knelt before them, using her hands to keep her knees off the grass.

"Your Majesty wished an audience?"

"Look up at me, Yan-lin." She did so obediently, glancing between him and Hikoshu with confusion. "Tell me what you think of the Avatar."

"He is a wise, impartial man who will keep balance among our four nations. I am humbled before him and only hope I can be of use in his quest for peace." She said it so smoothly, it might have been memorized, and Du Gong gave a harsh laugh.

"I told you, Avatar. She's quite the little diplomat. Just like her father. Just like him. Tell me what you really think, Yan-lin."

"Your Majesty?" she asked innocently, and Hikoshu yanked his arm free.

"Du Gong, stop this."

"Does he strike your fancy? After all he's young, isn't he?" Du Gong was humiliating the poor girl. Her expression didn't change, but her shoulders tensed. As if prepared for something like this. "Strong. Handsome. And powerful. You love power, don't you? That's what you really want. So tell me, do you want _him_?"

"Your Majesty," she murmured again, ducking her head to the ground just as Hikoshu growled.

"I said stop this!"

"Take him and use him. Break his spirit. Just like you want."

"Enough!" His emotion boiled over, beyond his control, and the water in the fountain behind him exploded into steam. The loud boom surprised everyone nearby, but then similar pops went off above them, drawing their attention to the fireworks that rained down amidst a chorus of cheers.

In moments, the fountain was forgotten, absorbed into the night's festivities, leaving Du Gong and Yan-lin as the only witnesses to his anger. They both watched him guardedly, as if he were the real threat.

"Yan-lin, get up," Hikoshu muttered. She glanced to Du Gong, but rose to her feet anyway; the Avatar's word took precedence over the commands of kings. "Let's go." He brooked no argument, shooting Du Gong a silencing glare before he pulled her from the fountain.

Behind them, the night shimmered with sparkles of green and gold.

Yan-lin waited until Hikoshu had dragged her back inside the palace and several halls away before she ripped her arm out of his hand. "Let go of me!" she snapped, her expression set in a glare. "What are you doing?"

"Getting you out of there." He was still furious. And sick. All over, Hikoshu felt like he'd bathed in a midden heap of rotting fish. "Getting you away from him."

"Why?"

That staggered him. "What do you mean, 'why'? Didn't you care what he was doing to you?"

She wrapped her arms around her stomach, possibly in embarrassment, but her anger never faltered. "He wasn't doing anything to me."

"He was degrading you. He was treating you like…like…" Yan-lin obviously didn't agree, her brows arching at his unfinished sentence. It was enough to make him nauseated again. "You can't tell me you thought that was normal."

"His Majesty is free to speak to me however he wants."

"_No_ one should be free to speak like that. He's crazy, Yan-lin, and he's dangerous. And you don't need to be around him."

Her eyes narrowed at that. "How dare you? He is my _king_!" Once more, he was struck speechless as she stormed away from him.

"Yan-lin, wait!" Stuffing down an irrational feeling of guilt, Hikoshu walked swiftly to catch up. She didn't even look at him, her eyes on the floor. "Please, tell me what's going on, because I'm having a hard time understanding."

That at least brought her to a halt, and she glanced along the hallway before pushing him up against the wall. The sudden action surprised him, and he stared down at her in bafflement.

"Listen to me, Hikoshu," Yan-lin whispered, her expression severe as she jammed her hand against his chest. "I've lived with this all of my life. _All_ of my life. Don't think that you're the first one. You're just the first to make him stop."

"You can't live like this," he said, and it only increased her fury.

"I don't want your pity."

"I don't care."

Frowning, she started to pull away, but he grabbed her shoulder. "I don't need you to save me," she protested, yanking out of his grasp.

"I thought you said you did."

"No—" she broke off, caught in her own contradiction, and gave a short shake of her head. "No, Hikoshu. This is how it's done. Like I told you, it's our world. You exploding like that? It just reflects back on me. I get blamed. Because in our world, that's how it goes." Yan-lin still battered him with her glare, but below it, she looked miserable. Hopelessly miserable, just like Tala. Whatever world they lived in, Hikoshu wanted no part in it. And he couldn't see how anyone else would want it, either.

"I'm not going to let them blame you."

That made her scoff, and she stepped back, releasing him from the wall. "You've always lived outside of reality. Even when I first met you. So hung up on how the world _should_ work, never seeing how it actually does." Then she hesitated, and for a moment, her expression slipped, revealing a very young and vulnerable girl behind the façade. "I wish I could live in your world, I really do. But I don't."

"Why not?"

Yan-lin gave a hopeless sigh, throwing up her hands in surrender. "I don't know. It's just how it is. Our roles to play." Yet again she paused, thinking to add, "What I told His Majesty back there was the truth. I will help you do whatever you need to do to make this world work the way you think it should. Because I believe you can. And maybe you'll end up saving someone, even if you can't save me."

Giving him one last unhappy frown, she walked away. Leaving him to contemplate in silence who it was he needed to save.


	20. Ch 19: The One to Save

**Chapter 19 - The One to Save**

* * *

Hikoshu was done with Omashu. The fake smiles, the painted faces, the feasts, the silks, all of it designed to hide its true appearance: something foul and inherently wrong, but what they'd lived with for so long that they had come to accept it as normal. So the Omashu people covered it with a veneer of finery and pretended like it didn't lurk just below the surface.

It was so engrained that he knew he had no way to fight it. He easily saw that in Yan-lin's reaction, when she mistook his attempts to help as efforts to make things worse. The look she gave him—of anger, embarrassment, anxiety, and most notably fear—drove home the fact that in the small amount of time he had, Hikoshu could not fix Omashu. He would have to leave, momentarily defeated by a culture that had defied him.

But he wasn't going to leave alone. If he intended to escape this world of glorified decay, Hikoshu was going to take the one other person who had no business being stuck in it.

Once he'd settled on his decision to leave, Hikoshu spent the rest of the night after the feast thinking of a way to accomplish it. Partly augmented by his fear of the nightmares, he shunned sleep in favor of plotting, his thoughts absorbed in the thin gauze canopy of his bed. He could sneak out, but that seemed impossible in a city surrounded by a chasm. He could exert his authority as Avatar, but that might cause political turmoil and actually hamper his efforts to escape.

By the next morning, Hikoshu still didn't have any definitive plans. The only step he'd outlined was getting to Tala, but even that posed a problem as he didn't know precisely where her room was. Exhausted from little sleep, he chose to wait for Mei-li to bring him breakfast, which she did with routine punctuality. Then, in order not to intimidate her, he waited for her to finish setting the table before he tugged at the hem of her primly-pressed sleeve.

"I need to get to the princess' quarters," Hikoshu said just as she gave a tiny chirp of surprise. "I know she lives somewhere within the royal household, but I need you to tell me where."

"Oh, no, no unaccompanied men are allowed there." Her eyes slid away automatically, as if dismissing the suggestion without thought, and she quickly busied herself with cleaning up some of the mud that had fallen off Wei Wen's gear the day before.

"Mei-li, please, I won't tell anyone you helped me." Hikoshu wasn't even certain if that was what kept her silent. The reassurance certainly didn't mollify her. With a shake of her head, she continued to wipe at the mess with her cotton rag.

"It just isn't done, Avatar. I'm sorry."

He swallowed unhappily; he didn't want to do this.

"I can order you to tell me."

"Yes, you can, Avatar." Her voice didn't change, but she had never addressed him so frequently as 'Avatar.' Whatever relationship they'd formed as friends was gone, and in its place were the mannerisms of a properly respectful servant. Sighing, he scrubbed at his cheek. It didn't matter; she belonged to their world, anyway.

"Mei-li, I need to get to the princess' chambers. Tell me where they are."

Finally, she straightened, clutching her rag to the green uniform over her breasts as she turned to him. Her expression was confusing: wide-eyed, but not frightened. Tight-lipped, but not angry. Distant, though, and very detached. "She lives in the Hall of Azaleas, just next to the terraced garden."

"Thank you."

She had gone back to cleaning up the mud by the time he left.

Hikoshu had no intention of asking anyone to accompany him; after all, there was no one in Omashu who would approve of what he was about to do. Fortunately, news of the Avatar's presence had traveled, and the sentries who watched the halls just outside of the royal household recognized him on sight. Hikoshu simply pretended he was supposed to be there, and they let him by without question, nodding their heads in greeting. After that, the Azalea Hall was easy to find, distinguishable as a corridor decorated with azalea stonework. Again, luck was on his side, as there were no guards on the women's quarters. Presumably, they didn't suspect untrustworthy parties would have made it past the first sentries.

Now, it became a matter of deciding which one of the dozen doors was to Tala's room. Shivering at a breeze that circled from the open windows, Hikoshu knocked on the first and waited for an answer. The noblewoman who eventually opened it most certainly wasn't Tala, her hair loose about her face and her expression frozen in one of shock.

"Is the princess here?" Hikoshu said in his most commanding tone, and she shook her head, almost mystified, as she tripped over words.

"N-no, she—"

It was enough. He left immediately for the second door.

This one was also answered by an unknown woman, much older than the last. But when he repeated the question, she didn't say no, her jaw merely hanging open with unexpressed indignity.

"Fu, who is it?" came Tala's familiar voice, and he pushed the door open, nearly knocking the poor woman over. She yelped and dove back as she struggled with her bulky servant's attire.

The room beyond was about the size of his, though there weren't desks—just tables and chairs. Some of the latter were covered in brocades of green fabric, as if the occupants were embroidering, and beyond them, the lattices were thrown open for light. Because of that, the room was unbearably cold, despite lit candles of varying shapes and colors which covered the tables. Still, the tiny flames made the room look a lot more vibrant than a palace lit by inanimate green rocks.

And then there was Tala, standing beside the windows, also more vibrant than anything else in the palace. She wore elegant crimson and cream robes, draped gracefully on her frame, and with her black hair unbound, her face clear of make-up, she looked very close to how he remembered her from home. The moment caught him by surprise, and Hikoshu couldn't tear his eyes from her.

"Fu, you're dismissed," Tala uttered after a long, tense silence. Fu began to protest, but Tala cut her off sharply. "I said you're dismissed. Tell the others not to come in here except at my request."

Fu hesitated, then ducked her head dutifully and slipped out of the room. Hikoshu didn't even look at her to spy her hooded glare—didn't really care, actually. Tala held his gaze, her expression the friendliest one he'd seen in nearly a week.

"Hikoshu, what's wrong?" She gathered up her robes and crossed the room. Her friendly smile had faded in favor of worry, which worked at her forehead and made her dark eyebrows curve inward. "Why are you here?"

"I'm leaving," he said quickly, finding his voice. "I want you to come with me."

That drew her up short of him. "What?"

"I'm not going to leave you here with these people. Not like this."

"Hikoshu…" Tala began, her body wavering and the hem of her robes slipping from her arm. "Let's sit down." She did just that, falling heavily onto the closest couch. Her gaze lost somewhere among the candle flames, Tala didn't even acknowledge him as he took a seat beside her.

"I've seen what this place is like," Hikoshu continued, desperate to convince her before the servant returned with others. "And you don't belong here. You belong at home."

The astonishment slowly disappeared from her eyes, and she now focused on him with almost hopeless certitude. "That isn't home anymore. Not with Nizan there. It's safer for me here."

"No one's safe here!" Hikoshu gestured heatedly to take in the room, the entire palace. "Wei Wen and Du Gong talk as if people are going to die, and you're now wrapped up in that."

"Nizan killed my father, Hikoshu." Now she grew angry, her heavy brow darkening in a way that so closely resembled her father when his temper also was tested—the hints of a storm threatening to break. "Believe me, political assassinations aren't only an Earth Kingdom invention."

Hikoshu was rendered speechless. The Fire Prince had killed his own father? He'd always assumed it was the work of the Great Sage Himizu—the same man who had murdered Hikoshu's former master. But if Nizan was responsible, then it meant that he'd taken the throne by force. That he was capable of doing such a thing.

"As I told you, Nizan's gone crazy," Tala said quietly. Her frown morphed into something terrible, her eyes finding a point on the front of his robes to stare at. "He distrusts everyone, and makes decisions based on his paranoia. Yet the more he tries to fight invisible enemies, the more real enemies he creates. He has strange mood swings, which the court only tolerates because he still holds favor in the military. But everyday, he erodes his support just a little more."

A tinge of sadness then entered her voice, and Hikoshu knew this was the part she'd most dreaded telling him. "Last spring, Nizan took a wife. Someone of noble breeding and little influence, probably by Himizu's choice. She was with child earlier in the year. But then Nizan suspected it wasn't his." Her gaze met Hikoshu's, and the intensity was almost as hideous as the implications. "They don't have a child now."

"He wouldn't…," Hikoshu started to protest, but her expression didn't change. "I know Nizan. He wouldn't do something like that."

"Things change, Hikoshu."

He felt like he was clinging to a bison in the middle of a dive, with no earth in sight. He'd given up hope of ever calling the Fire Nation home again, but it was still an integral part of who he was. And to hear the Fire Lord—his former sovereign and ruler—committing such acts…

Hikoshu shook his head. There was nothing he could do about the Fire Nation now. "But I'm not going to leave you here so the same thing can happen to you."

"Hikoshu…"

"I'm not. You don't have to go back to the Fire Nation. You can go with me, wherever I go. I can protect you."

"You can't protect everyone." Frustration battled with misery in her face, but her eyes were as hard as stone. "Believe me, I want nothing more than to run away with you—"

"Then why won't you?"

"Because I can't! Because of history—think about it. My uncle ran away with the Water Tribe Princess after she was married. And what happened then? What happened to the Avatar?"

"It's different this time."

"It's never different, Hikoshu. It's the exact same!" Tala sighed, reaching to clasp his hand. Her fingers were cold, likely from the chilly breeze that floated through the room and fluttered the candles. "They hated you for that last betrayal. What will Omashu and the Fire Nation think if you betray them again? I'm not going to do that to you."

He wanted to argue with her. Tell her that her logic made no sense, and that no one would blame him for wanting to save her from a loveless marriage and an insane family—or blame her for letting him. But they would, because it was how the world worked. And everyone had accepted it but him.

"I can't leave you here," Hikoshu said again, more softly now. It wasn't a debate so much as a final protest. He couldn't convince her to go, and he understood why, even if he wanted to fight it. This wasn't his battle—not for now, at least.

Tala gave him a sad smile, cupping her hand to his cheek. A hand that was as cold and white as the sky outside the window. "My husband will be here to have breakfast with me. You've already caused some moral outrage by entering unaccompanied. It's best that you don't tempt his anger when he arrives."

Hikoshu nodded and stood. The last thing he wanted was to make her life any harder, and from all appearances, he was doing just that. So, with a deep bow of respect and apology, he murmured "my princess" one last time and headed for the door.

"Wait," she said. Hikoshu stopped with his hand on the handle, looking back to her. She had gathered her train as she stood, and now approached him at the door. "This might be the last I see of you."

"I don't—"

She interrupted him with a stern, commanding frown, as authoritative as her father had ever been. "I was so happy to find you here, because I hadn't seen a warm face in a while. In years. And you remind me of a time when it actually felt good to smile."

"Tala…." He couldn't tell her he felt the same way, even if he did. It would simply make it that much harder to leave her there.

She surprised him, though, by suddenly stepping forward, her arms around his neck in a flash of red, her face buried next to his. The contact of her body, warm in comparison to her hands, brought on a rush of emotion, and he hugged her back with equal strength. Her hair, bearing the scent of incense smoke, fell briefly across his eyes.

"I'm coming back," he whispered, close enough to her ear that he knew she would hear him. "I'm going to fix this. Just as soon as I figure out how."

Tala's shoulders heaved gently against him, as if sinking in resignation, and she pulled back to hold his cheek in saddened affection.

"I just want you to come back."

Hikoshu forced himself to look away from those saffron-hued eyes, the fire in them dimmed as if she'd aged sixty years instead of four, though he didn't know how he found the resolve to move. There were things he had to do—things that demanded his immediate attention—but Hikoshu knew that wasn't what made him open the door and slip outside.

He suspected that Tala, despite her beaten expression, still had some fire in her. And she had given him strength with a simple request to come back. A request that he couldn't fulfill until he'd finished with the task at hand.

Hikoshu wasted no time.

Rescuing Tala had been, at that point, his only plan. But fueled by his helplessness and a sudden need to change _something, _Hikoshu found his feet leading him on a new course. And as he walked, his anger grew. Even if he had known he couldn't do anything about Omashu, he'd deluded himself into thinking that helping Tala in some small way might make up for it. Yet once more, his good intentions were ruined, thwarted by a system that had been in place for centuries. So now frustration drove his steps, and unspent energy hummed through his arms as he went to make his one last stand.

The arching doors of the throne room were shut, as Hikoshu had assumed they would be. Before the gilded, _nanmu_-wood doors, two sentries reclined with apparent boredom, one having risked possible sanction by bending himself a stone perch from the wall. When he approached, the two immediately roused themselves from their stupor, the seated guard pushing his wide-brimmed salakot out of his face.

"Is Du Gong in there?" Hikoshu asked before either could speak. He could see the doubt flicker across their faces; though the guards most certainly recognized him as the Avatar, Hikoshu was not dressed for any sort of official audience. In fact, with his drab, unadorned robes of olive-green, he likely looked less formal than even the servants.

The second, more attentive guard seemed to make up his mind on how to approach the matter, and held up his hand as if that would really stop Hikoshu. "His Majesty is in a meeting and can't be disturbed."

"Is the meeting with Gi-Luon?"

"I'm sorry, Avatar, we can't let you go in," the first guard objected, and Hikoshu looked to him with every ounce of authority he could marshal.

"Stand down." He hardly expected them to obey such a command, so for their benefit—and to show them that he was not in a mood to argue—Hikoshu splayed his hands outward, letting flames engulf his fingers.

Fortunately, he now had their attentions, and both men hurried out of his way, as if afraid he might turn those flames on them. Satisfied that they wouldn't bother him again, Hikoshu extinguished his fire and then swept forward on one leg, shoving his palms toward the door. The resultant blast of air slammed into the wood, and the loud crack that reverberated through the grand hall hinted that the doors might be breaking. Yet nothing about the wood's appearance changed, except for a thin line of light that grew down the center, splitting the stylized, gold-gilt image of a badger-mole in half.

Hikoshu could have simply demanded the soldiers open the doors for him, but he wasn't sure they would, and he knew such a grand entrance would throw the room's occupants off-guard. So when the doors had opened enough to admit him, Hikoshu strode through, swiping his hand backward to bend the entrance shut before any guard could think to follow. None did.

Just like on the day of his audience with Du Gong, the throne room this morning was empty. No guards, no scribes, no petitioners—just the king, seated on the edge of his throne with one leg tucked up under the other. His jeweled hand twisted in his beard, he mulled over a pedestal of stone before him, an oversized map drooping over its edges. Just above his shoulder, Gi-Luon hovered in absorbed study of the paper, the boot of one foot planted against the king's armrest. His clothes today more resembled those of a proper soldier, the sleeves of his military-issued robe bunched above copper bracers as he pointed to invisible locales on the map. His hat and cuirass, however, were missing, leaving only the cotton uniform as his protection against imminent war.

At Hikoshu's entrance, they both raised their heads, and Gi-Luon earthbended the pedestal back into the ground as he snatched up the paper. "Avatar," he said, removing his foot from the king's chair. As if unimpressed by Hikoshu's display, he casually folded the map and slipped it under the lapel of his robe. "You seem a bit perturbed."

"It's been five days," he said as he came to stand several feet before the throne. "I've spent too much time here already. I need to be on my way."

Du Gong was glaring, his knuckles blanching with the strength of his grip on the rock seat. But he didn't rise and he didn't speak, which was just as well with Hikoshu. He imagined anything the king had to say would have set his temper off.

"I understand, Avatar," Gi-Luon began with a placid smile, refusing to acknowledge the heat in his voice. "I understand your impatience to continue on your business, as I too have demands on my time. But I'm afraid I haven't been able to locate a willing trader just yet."

"Perhaps if His Majesty stopped throwing so many feasts, there would be fewer demands on your time."

The quip was provocative on purpose, and Du Gong rose to the bait, growling as he pushed himself up. But Gi-Luon set a firm hand on his shoulder, after which Du Gong slowly returned to the throne.

"Quite amusing, Avatar," the general remarked, as if the insult were nothing more than a gentle ribbing. Yet the strength of his hold on Du Gong's arm betrayed his own irritation. "Rest assured, however, if you would be patient enough to give me two more days, I will see to it that I have a trader for you before then."

"I've already given you more time than I have. If I'm kept waiting much longer–"

"You'll what?" Du Gong finally found his voice, though it was barely more than the guttural growl of earlier. The dull, glazed-over stare was gone, as well as the burning, piercing scrutiny. Instead, Du Gong glared at him with unadulterated hate. "You'll cause a few more fountains to steam up?" Gi-Luon's grip on him tightened. "Push past my guards and force open my doors, as if you have any power here?"

"Would you really like to test what I can do, Your Majesty?" He kept his voice cold, for all of the heat in his hands. "I assure you, it's a lot more than some simple waterbending."

Du Gong's growl deepened as he tried to stand once more, and Gi-Luon had to put a restraining hand on his other shoulder. Hikoshu would have been more than happy if he'd let the king up. A fight was exactly what he craved at the moment.

"Avatar," Gi-Luon said a little extra coolly this time, the pleasant smile finally gone, "you don't really understand how Omashu works, I'm afraid. Or perhaps if you did, you would also understand why diplomacy goes much farther than brute strength."

No. He didn't understand how it worked. And he didn't really want to understand it, either. "Then I suppose, for the sake of diplomacy, I have another request to make of you."

"Of course," he said, the smile returning cautiously. "We're pleased to help the Avatar however we can."

"I intend to ask Yan-lin to accompany me to the desert." Hikoshu hadn't actually intended that, until just now. But the fury in Du Gong's eyes was so close to the fury he'd seen in them the night before, that he worried for anyone who might be the object of their wrath.

That fury now grew even more violent.

"Yan-lin is to stay in Omashu," Du Gong ordered, even as Gi-Luon pressed down on him again to prevent the outburst.

"By your own admission, General," Hikoshu said, trying to avoid mockery but knowing he'd likely failed, "I'm not much of a diplomat. Yan-lin—by your own admission, Your Majesty—is an excellent one. I would greatly benefit with her help."

"She has duties in Omashu," Gi-Luon began, and Hikoshu quickly cut him off.

"I will offer her the choice to accompany me, and if she says no because of her duties, then I will honor that." He paused. "But if she says yes, you will honor that, too."

"You will not give orders to the throne!" Du Gong snarled, and for a moment, Hikoshu thought that Gi-Luon wasn't going to be able to hold the king down anymore. But after a tense, wordless struggle, in which the general turned a chastising frown on Du Gong's efforts, the king finally settled back in the chair, his body rocking with each breath.

"Avatar," again, Gi-Luon looked to him, "Yan-lin can't leave. She's soon to marry His Majesty."

Hikoshu was struck speechless, just as he had been so many times in the past several days. Though nothing should surprise him, anymore. Especially this. But it stirred the revulsion that had become entrenched in his chest and made his head swim.

The only thing he could think to say was, "His Majesty is already married."

"His Majesty has many wives," came Gi-Luon's simple answer, as if it wasn't pure insanity to hand his daughter over to such a man.

"Yan-lin is my subject, Avatar," Du Gong muttered with barely repressed anger—a feeling that was mutual. "She is under my jurisdiction. Not yours."

"I'm telling you what I'm doing because of diplomacy." Hikoshu found it hard to talk, hard to concentrate. Yet the words sprung to mind easily, as well as the confidence needed to say them. "I'm going to offer Yan-lin the opportunity to come with me because of diplomacy. But I tell you now, through brute strength, that you will have _no_ _say_ in this, Du Gong. She is not married to you yet."

Somehow, the king managed to push out of Gi-Luon's grip, yelling hoarsely as he leapt to his feet. Rock answered him, a sizeable chunk shooting from the ground, and Hikoshu barely shifted out of the way as it flew at him.

The next stone Du Gong threw with far more accuracy, and Hikoshu had to deflect it with air. Then, spinning evasively out of the king's reach, he returned an air blast meant to immobilize. A wall of earth, however, shot up between them, and the wind smashed uselessly against it.

From the other side emerged Gi-Luon's voice. "Avatar, stop!" Slowly, once he knew Hikoshu was listening, he slid the stone back into the floor, revealing Du Gong once more. The king in the meantime had returned to his seat, though his lips twitched with barely contained rage. Gi-Luon, who now rested his fingers lightly on his shoulder, regarded Hikoshu as calmly as ever, as if the exchange had neither shocked nor concerned him. "Give me two days to find you a trader. Two days, and we will discuss this at length."

"I'll give you two days, General, but I've already said my piece." He turned his back on the two men, marching from the room.

Du Gong did not attack again.

**xxXxxxXxxXxxxXxx**

Hikoshu didn't see anything of Yan-lin for the rest of that day. He honestly expected he would've—after all, he'd committed a grave taboo sneaking into Tala's room, and then had committed an act of aggression against the king himself in Yan-lin's name. He expected that someone would have come to rebuff him, or simply to ask what he thought he was doing.

But he was alone for the day. The only sign that the palace knew something had gone wrong was in Mei-li's demeanor as she went about her daily routine. She almost looked frightened, as if she couldn't anticipate what he would do at any moment. Like he might snap into the Avatar State and raze the room around them. He'd long ago grown used to that look of fear on others, such that her expression was disappointing only because he'd lost someone to talk to.

The next day was just as uneventful as the last, and he had to wonder what kind of reaction this really was. He was so used to things _happening_ when he made such a scene with his bending. People jumping up to stop him, to fight him, to admonish him, to support him. But, all of a sudden, he was forgotten again. As if he'd never done anything at all.

There was another party that night, according to Mei-li—who watched him with the same amount of apprehension as she had the day before. He heard nothing more of it, though it didn't bother him. The last thing he ever wanted to attend was another party. So when evening rolled around, and all those important guests of the king's palace were at the feast, he snuck into the garden outside his room. It was the first chance he'd had to visit it, and the feeling of being alone for once didn't seem so dreary.

It had apparently snowed in the last day or so, he realized as he stepped onto flat stones hidden in the dead grass. Everything was dusted with a fine layer of white that caught the late twilight, throwing up a bronzy reflection onto the thick clouds. The limbs that had been covered in golden leaves nearly a week ago were now muted under powdery snow, and only the pond looked to be the same. Warming his fingers against his palms, he took the half-buried stones to the wooden bridge.

There were flamingo koi just below the water's black surface, their bright pink scales visible despite the fading day. They didn't move, having already retired for the duration of the winter, and he watched them with just a little sadness. After all, he'd hoped when he left the South Pole that he could see living things again. But the world here was just as cloaked in the season as the Pole was the entire year, and nothing stirred. So much unlike the Fire Nation, where it never got cold enough to stop moving.

He heard footsteps in the stones, though he didn't turn to greet the person. It was either an occupant of one of the other rooms that let out onto the enclosed garden, or it was someone inquiring about his absence at the party. He wouldn't want to speak to either one, so he leaned against the railing of the bridge and watched the sky on the water.

"You weren't at the party," the visitor finally said, and he looked up. Yan-lin regarded him, her hair weaved through a gold-crescent headdress, her face painted so vividly that he could see it even in the twilight. Her gray silks weren't thick enough for the cold, though, and she folded her arms across her breasts as she approached the edge of the bridge.

"Wasn't really in the mood." He propped his hip against the balustrade as he turned to face her. "How'd you get out here? Did you go through my room?"

"You didn't answer the door," she said simply, gazing up at him with eyes outlined in black. "I knew you couldn't be far."

"Well, then, why are you looking for me?"

Her face morphed drastically as she scowled, her painted-in eyebrows curling down toward her nose, and the seething look she gave him could have melted the snow that now fell around them. "I think you know why. I needed to talk to you."

"Well, let's do it somewhere a little warmer." But as he started down the bridge, Yan-lin pushed a frozen hand into his chest to block him, her mouth a pert frown.

"Why did you do that?"

"Do what?" Hikoshu was going to play innocent for as long as possible, just so he could have a better idea of what her reaction would be. From all appearances, though, it didn't seem very encouraging.

"You know what I'm talking about!" Her breaths were white puffs in the air, hanging between them with the same chill as her stare. "Storming in on the king, making such demands on him."

"Is it because I made demands, or because of the demands I made?"

"Both," she said quickly, her palm still flat against his chest. "You had nothing to gain from it, and you just made my life harder."

Hikoshu yanked her hand away, making sure she could see his glare in the dusk. "You know, considering our past, I have trouble understanding why you're admonishing me. Seems to me you should be wholly grateful that I'm helping you at all."

"Don't say you're helping me!" Yan-lin moved in front of him physically as he tried to step around her, and met his glare with a ferocity that was quite at odds with her delicately made-up attire. "I told you you're welcome to punish me, and you are. But don't lie to me and say you're helping me. You're doing this for yourself, because you have to save someone. And you can't save the person that you really want."

The accuracy of her summation startled him, and she pressed her point in the ensuing silence. "I know you went to Princess Tala's room yesterday. I don't know what you said to her, but I imagine that if you had your choice, she would be riding out of Omashu with you and not me."

She was right. Completely right, and he hated her for somehow seeing through him. "Perhaps, Yan-lin, I just saw something that I needed to fix. You know, what Avatars do."

"This isn't the work of an Avatar," she said lowly, stepping closer so that he could hear her. "This is you. Don't pretend you're being righteous."

"Are you really marrying the king?"

Now it was her turn to be caught off-guard, and she jerked her hand away as if burned. "I don't know." As the snow disappeared into her headdress, she wrapped her arms around herself, her gaze falling absently to his shoulder. "Yes. Maybe. I learned about the betrothal last spring."

"Why? Why are you being forced to marry him?"

"Because it's complicated!" The lost look faded from her eyes as Yan-lin straightened her arms to her sides, her temper reignited. "And I'm not being forced to marry him."

Hikoshu scoffed openly at that. "So when you say you learned about your betrothal, you mean the king proposed? And you accepted with a coy glance and a profession of love?"

"I said don't mock me!" She punctuated the furious exclamation with a rough shove at his chest, using both hands. But Hikoshu grabbed her wrists as he took a step back to brace himself. "Let me go!"

"Yan-lin, you told me I had freedom." He now pulled her close as she fought him, trying hard not to lose his balance. "You told me I could do whatever I want. Don't you want the same thing?"

"It's not the same," she protested, twisting her arms one direction, then another. But he held tight. "There are traditions!"

"I don't care about traditions."

"You don't have to, but I do."

Hikoshu was sure his grip couldn't hurt her, but Yan-lin still struggled as if shackled by hot iron, her hands squeezing into tiny fists. Her sleeves had slid up past her elbows in the ensuing fight, and foggy breaths marked her irritated grunts.

"Well, you don't have to, either, anymore." Finally Hikoshu released her, and she stumbled backwards, nearly losing her footing on the slick stones. Stunned, she gasped quietly, her chest heaving as she straightened her headdress, knocked askew by her movements. "I told the king I'd offer you a choice, and I am. If you don't want to go, fine. But I do need a diplomat. And you said you'd help me, no matter what."

"You don't need me. You just need someone to take care of." Her voice was childish and sullen, and she rubbed at her wrists gingerly.

"I need you to take care of me," he countered. "I don't know things like you do. And after we're done, you're welcome to return to Omashu. Just as you want."

"Hikoshu, I can't." Directing her miserable gaze to the pond, Yan-lin once more clutched her arms from the cold, and once again, he took her hands. Flinching, she tried to draw away, but his touch was much gentler this time, and she relaxed into his grip as he firebended her fingers warm.

"Yan-lin, just help me."

Lightly, her eyes came to rest on his hands, the lashes dark against her whitened cheeks. She didn't speak as she studied how his palms held hers, and Hikoshu wasn't even sure she'd heard what he had said. But after a moment marked only by the snowfall, she gave a short, barely perceptible nod.

"I will." Her lashes lifted to regard him, and the penetrating look of her eyes was almost enough to make him drop her hands. "I'll help you."

He really hadn't expected her to give in that easily. Hikoshu had anticipated a fight, or at least a little more balking from her before he finally made his point. The sudden about-face, when she'd been so adamant moments before, gave him pause. With sudden doubt, he let go of her. "Ah…thank you."

But whatever had stopped her from saying 'yes' before was obviously conquered now. Yan-lin's expression held only resolution—sincerity. She had made a decision and intended to see it through, without any regret. Hikoshu didn't think he'd ever chosen any path so swiftly or with such conviction, and while he couldn't understand how she had, he also couldn't question his good fortune. Putting a hand on her shoulder to turn her away, he surrendered the matter and said, "Let's get inside."

Yan-lin hadn't yet taken a step when Hikoshu heard the sound. Holding tight to her shoulder, he pulled her up short as he looked back toward the bridge, his blood running cold. It was faint, but distinguishable—a crunching noise, like footsteps in a hard snow. But the snow was thin and wet, powdery where it stuck at all. And the sound itself was familiar in a way that unsettled him far deeper than any normal footsteps would have.

"Do you hear that?" he whispered, even though he knew her answer before she shook her head. How could it be out there? In Omashu? Who could it be hunting, when there were no Water Tribesmen?

"I know you're here!" he shouted, releasing Yan-lin's shoulder. The sound came from everywhere and nowhere, and he turned to take in every direction. The footsteps continued uninterrupted, trudging with unnerving patience toward its destination. "Come out! Show yourself!"

As if in response, a rope shot out from the obscurity of the trees, the length of it snapping like a rat-viper. Caught by surprise, Hikoshu wasn't prepared as it wrapped around his throat, biting into his neck and cutting off his air. He grabbed at it as he choked, but before he could pull it off, the rope ripped him from the ground. It felt like his head was being torn from his shoulders. Smashing into the railing, he tumbled over into the pond as Yan-lin screamed somewhere behind him.

Suddenly, Hikoshu was dragged into his nightmare. The water was black, cold, and painful, filling his mouth and nose while he struggled to breathe. Yet he could hardly register anything beyond the crushing, agonizing pain in his throat, and he scrabbled at the scratchy rope as a heady darkness swam over him. When he moved, his limbs were weaker; he felt like he was slipping away, though he wasn't sure if it was out of consciousness or into the Avatar State.

Summoning what was left of his strength, Hikoshu bended the water around his hand into an ice knife and slashed blindly at the taut rope above his head. He hit something solid, even as his body jerked leftward through the water. It took another slice before it finally gave, and the painful, dragging sensation on his spine let up. Burying his feet in the gravel bottom, Hikoshu fought to his knees and broke through the surface of the shallow pool with strangled coughs. A moment later, he'd wrenched the rope off his neck and was clutching the skin where it had dug into his windpipe.

It took another moment for his vision to come back, fading slowly in from the darkness that had nearly seized him. Night had descended since he'd first entered the garden, and now the trees formed deep shadows that hid silent enemies. Yan-lin wasn't along the banks, so he tried to call for her. But the only sound that came out was a croaking grunt.

Hikoshu couldn't keep standing in the open. Battling with the oppressive ringing in his ears, he pulled himself up straight and threw up his hands, his elbows out. All across the garden, the snow shot off the ground and trees. The world became a flurry of white, as thick as a snowstorm, though the flakes fell gently without any breeze to hold them. Now lost within a moment of reprieve, he planted his hands against his knees and breathed noisily.

Whatever was attacking him, he knew it couldn't be the spirit—spirits didn't use ropes. And he found himself more terrified of the enemy he didn't know. Swallowing hard, he tried his voice again. "Yan-lin!" Better, but not by much.

He straightened shakily and assumed the octopus form. Tendrils of water flowed up at his command, surrounding him like dozens of little tentacles. Prepared to launch at anyone who came too close. But the night was still obscured with snow, and the only sounds were his dripping robes and the trickle of his waterbending. The cold was now starting to reach his awareness, gripping him past the panic that fueled his heart, and the slight tremble in his arms threatened his form as he waited anxiously for another attack.

He heard the faint whisk of a second rope. Now alert, Hikoshu swung around before it could contact him, a tendril slicing through the fibers as if it were as immaterial as a cloud. Then, as the rope fragment hit the pond, he snapped a bolt of water toward its source, the stream freezing into a spear even as he threw it.

Somewhere in the distance, the ice buried itself deep into a tree or a building with a _thunk_, but he was already turning his attention elsewhere. He knew it hadn't hit anything—that whoever he faced had moved on to another position. The snow had begun to settle again, exposing him, and he was no closer to finding his attacker.

Another rope shot out at him, and he swung to catch it. But just as he deflected that attack, yet another rope came from the opposite direction. His heart skipped as he realized that there was more the one person out there. And he couldn't hold them off like this.

It was then Hikoshu heard a loud rush of air, and he turned just in time to see a stone, twice the size of his head, barreling at him. Barely slowed by the tentacles, the rock burst through his defenses and slammed into his abdomen, throwing him onto the shore and against a tree. Grabbing the bark for support, he pushed himself to his feet and fought off the urge to vomit from the agony searing through his stomach. His assailants were earthbenders; he needed to get back to the water, and fast.

Before Hikoshu could move, the ground erupted from the grass around his ankles, clapping shut around his calves with a vice-like grip. Nearly knocked off-balance, Hikoshu caught the tree again, holding to it as he tried for enough momentum to kick the stone free. Across from him, an earthbender emerged from the darkness that shrouded the pond, his hands held in front of him at ready. His face was lost in shadows, his head and shoulders draped in green fabric only a few shades short of black. The suit he wore was almost skin-tight, barely showing the hints of armor padding over the chest and thighs, and his feet were naked as he slid silently through the snow-covered grass. Only his circular helmet, much like that of an Omashu soldier, seemed vaguely familiar.

Hikoshu didn't let him come close, snapping his hands outward with a cutting slash to level a wave of fire at him. The man ducked behind a wall of earth to block the attack, and the fire surged past him, flooding over the pond to set the trees on the opposite bank aflame. Unfortunately the fire also blinded Hikoshu, and the man, using his momentary advantage, shoved down his wall to assault him with rocks. He avoided two with airbending and deflected another with a block that sent acute shocks of pain through his arm. His legs stuck as they were to the ground, he couldn't maneuver out of the way, and only the bouts of flame he returned in answer to the stones kept him from being overwhelmed.

Yet Hikoshu's heart sank as another man appeared in the broken firelight, dressed the same as the first. He also held his hands in preparation to bend, and Hikoshu knew that he couldn't stop both of them. Evading a new attack from this earthbender, he launched a fireblast at the first man, which was easily blocked with stone. Yet the deflection of fire off the shield swept toward the second earthbender, who was also forced to defend. The subsequent distraction allowed Hikoshu time to bend water out of the pond behind them. An arc encircled the second man, encasing his arms and feet in ice, and he grunted as he tipped backwards and fell.

But just as Hikoshu turned to block the first man's renewed onslaught, he heard a noise in the branches above him. Without even looking, he threw a powerful blast of air upwards, and a shower of snow and leaves fell on him. Behind the tree, he heard something heavy hit the ground.

Hikoshu had just returned his attention back to the first man when a massive wedge of earth suddenly shot up at an angle, slamming into his chest. The air was driven from his lungs as the rock pinned his shoulders against the tree, his ribs threatening to break at the impact. He couldn't bend around the rock, its width too large and its hold too tight for him get his arms past it. So he pushed against it uselessly with airbending, as the remaining earthbender felt secure enough to approach him cautiously.

Just then, Yan-lin's silhouette sprung up against the backdrop of the smoldering trees. She crept silently, unnoticed in the man's singular focus on Hikoshu, and came close enough that she could leap forward, pushing something into his back. Unprepared, the man gave a truncated cry of pain and surprise, spinning around to attack her, but she ducked under his arms and darted away.

"You'll have to set him free!" he heard her shout, dodging yet another swipe. Hikoshu could see the man teeter, then stumble. "He can heal you, but you have to set him free!"

She'd stabbed him. Despite his gratitude, Hikoshu felt an icy wave wash through him. So was that her special fighting skill? The ability to stab people in the back? His gratitude faltered as the earthbender turned and bended the stone back into the ground, and he clutched his chest in something other than pain. How horrible.

His ribs ached when he breathed, and his throat still felt on fire. But he didn't have time to think about his physical pains as the earthbender finally collapsed, forcing him to move quickly to his side. Pushing the man onto his stomach, Hikoshu slid Yan-lin's knife from his back. It was an ornately carved blade with an ivory handle, small enough to hide in her robes. Shooting her a disturbed frown, he then used the bloody knife to cut open the man's robes.

In his left flank was a thin cut, probably not deep, if the length of the blade was any sign. Still, with extreme care, Hikoshu called water from the pond and pressed it against the wound. He wasn't the healer that Natquik was—wasn't even a fifth of the healer that Natquik was. But if necessary, he could heal some things. And with a short, fervent prayer of thanks, he realized he could heal this.

It had hit an artery, he thought. Maybe an important one, though his skills weren't such that he could follow the paths of _chi_ very far. But as Yan-lin hadn't removed the knife, it had held the artery tight. So Hikoshu found it just a matter of stitching the puncture wound, the intricate courses of the man's _chi_ tingling against his fingers as he moved the water of his body. Then, before the man recovered enough from the shock of being injured, Hikoshu bended more water out of the pond and wrapped him in the same icy shackles that currently held his cohort.

"You might need another healer after this," he muttered, sitting back on his heels. "I suggest you don't wait too long."

Yan-lin knelt beside him, picking up the blood-smeared knife, then wiped it carefully on the grass. He stared at her blankly as she resheathed it somewhere in her fancy, silver-embroidered robes, her expression calm. "Who do you work for?" she commanded in a steady voice.

"I owe you my life," the man hissed at Hikoshu from his spot on the ground, his dirty face streaked with sweat despite the ice that imprisoned him. "But I'm not telling you that."

"Hikoshu," Yan-lin began, the composure in her voice almost eerie, "go see to the person you threw from the tree. I think she's hurt, too."

"What are you going to do here?" he asked uncertainly, as he saw her pull her knife from its sheath again.

"I'm going to ask him some things."

"Yan-lin…" he said, his apprehension growing. But she cut him off with a silencing look.

"I'm just asking a few questions. I wouldn't have you heal him if I wanted him dead. Now," her gaze shifted back to the man, who looked even more terrified than he, "go see to the other earthbender before she dies."

Hikoshu didn't want to leave at all, but if he really had thrown the third earthbender from the tree with an air blast, then the person might very well be hurt. Best to make sure it wasn't life-threatening. With one last look to the panting man, he got up and retreated behind the tree.

When Hikoshu found her, the earthbender was sprawled across a stone path, her supine form not far from a neighboring tree. As she didn't look like she would move, he finally let his guard drop enough to kneel beside her. The woman was dressed the same as the other two men, which disguised her sex but didn't hinder her bending. Her eyes were closed. Producing a flame his palm, he pushed her hat and hood away from her head to examine it for any obvious injuries. None that he could tell, though the more serious ones would be invisible.

As Natquik always said, head wounds were fatal. And any person who was unconscious was presumed to have a head wound until proven otherwise. With a sigh, he bended snow around his free hand and pressed it against her brow. She didn't stir at the contact of the cold, but he could sense the heat of her breath. So at least he knew she was alive.

There wasn't any damage to her head or neck—the most important areas. Slowly, he worked his way down her body, pushing past his discomfort as he examined her torso and stomach. Natquik could have examined her with just a hand to her ribs, but Hikoshu had to touch every area. So he worked slowly over her, examining her skin with his fire and examining her insides with water.

He found a broken rib and a cracked pelvis, with no significant bleeding. They were easy enough to heal; he'd always been pretty good at stitching bone. It was hard, like earth, and not nearly as pliant as tissue. Much easier to focus the _chi_ around. When he finished, she was healthy but still unconscious. There wasn't much he could do for that, though, and Hikoshu checked to make sure her breaths were even before he headed back to Yan-lin. The woman would probably wake up with a headache and a lot of nausea, but she'd at least be alive.

As he approached with the fire still in his hand, Yan-lin straightened and hid her knife before he could see if she'd used it. "Is the woman alright?" she asked, a bit breathlessly.

"She'll be fine." His eyes immediately went to the captured earthbender. The man was pale, wide-eyed, and sweating enough that even in Hikoshu's flame, he looked wet. But still alive, too. "What did you do?"

"He says he works for Ba Sing Se," she answered without answering his question, and held out an amber-colored sash that meant nothing to him. He took it gingerly, his eyes immediately going to an embroidered design at its base. Three vertical bars of emerald, with tapered ends, and connected by a black, horizontal bar through their center. The horizontal bar was also stylized, drawn with an almost serpentine shape. "It's the symbol for Ba Sing Se," Yan-lin explained, circling the design with her finger. "I found this on him."

"Why is Ba Sing Se attacking me?" Hikoshu directed his question to the captured man, but as he looked in no condition to answer, Yan-lin did instead.

"He states that Ba Sing Se has learned of your intent to visit the sandbenders. He says that Ba Sing Se fears you'll attempt to take their side in the border fights."

"That's…" It was ridiculous. Hikoshu didn't even know anything about border disputes with Ba Sing Se. "They would actually kill me over something like that?"

"They would," Yan-lin agreed, taking the sash back. "But they aren't trying to."

"What?"

"He's not from Ba Sing Se." With disgust, she threw the sash back on the man. He winced as if she had thrown a boulder on him instead, and shrank away from her glare. "It's a lie. A plant to make you think that Ba Sing Se wants you dead."

Hikoshu's head felt stuffy, both out of confusion and exhaustion. "But what about the sash…?"

"Just think about it. Why would anyone who is trying to kill you with stealth wear something that perfectly identifies them?" Yan-lin said patiently. "And how would Ba Sing Se know your plans already? It takes nearly a week for a messenger pigeon-cat to fly that distance. So someone here must have sent them."

"Who in Omashu wants me dead? I'll be gone in a day or two." It hurt to speak, and breathing was only slightly less painful. All he wanted was some ice for his neck, and a little bit of sleep. "Who could possibly be angry—"

Hikoshu cut off with a thought, even as he realized that Yan-lin had had the same one. Her painted brows scrunched in a look of misery and sympathy, she nodded.

"It seems like something he'd do. His Majesty is…temperamental."

"His Majesty is insane," Hikoshu corrected, turning back to the man. "Is it true? Were you sent by Du Gong?" The man simply stared.

"Hikoshu, this is why I can't go with you." Yan-lin tugged on his still-damp sleeve to catch his attention. "His Majesty is not a man to stand down from a fight. Tomorrow, I'll just tell him you talked to me and I refused your offer."

Hikoshu had to move his flame away to avoid burning her. "If Du Gong's trying to kill me because I'm taking you away, then it will be a cold day in the Fire Nation before I leave you here."

"He won't stop! His Majesty is not going to let you win this." Her voice dropped to a whisper, her eyes narrowed. "You can't beat him by yourself, Hikoshu. This isn't your home terrain—you have no friends here."

He stared at her for a long moment, then shook her off his arm. "You're right. I don't. But I do have the element of surprise." He waved his light at the men on the ground, the ice hampering their attempts to move. "As far as Du Gong's aware, I may already be taken care of. So if we leave tonight, no one will even look for us until the morning."

Underneath the white cake, she visibly blanched. "Tonight?"

"I'm not going to leave you here just to save myself. Now, the other night, you said you knew someone who could help me. Can you still take me to them?"

Yan-lin was silent, her choices weighing heavily in her gaze. The battle inside her seemed as intense as the one he just fought, and suddenly, Hikoshu realized she was hesitating. To forestall the possibility of her refusal, he took her hand. Trying to ignore the trace of blood still on her fingers.

"Yan-lin, nothing has changed. I still need your help, now more so than ever. I need to leave the city quickly, before Du Gong makes another assassination attempt, and I don't know Omashu—not like you. You're right that I'm alone, but I need at least one person on my side." Hikoshu felt the tension in her hand fade, and saw the resistance in her eyes weaken. "You already agreed to help me once. Please don't turn on me now."

Hikoshu could tell, in the way she pulled back her shoulders and nodded stiffly to herself, that she was finally remembering her promise to him. That she was once more resolute. "I still don't think this is a wise decision. But whatever you need me to do, Hikoshu, I'll do it for you." She then pulled her hand out of his grip, and he absently wiped his palm on his robe.

"That's all I'm asking." With that matter handled, Hikoshu lowered his flame to illuminate the two men on the ground, the now-melting ice glistening brightly with his firelight. "What about them? I can't leave them in ice. Not without it killing them slowly." The man closest to them paled, his helmet slanted over his face.

Yet it was Yan-lin's cool response, empty of emotion or compromise, that really filled the earthbenders' eyes with terror.

"I'll take care of them."

* * *

**A/N: **I know, this has been loooong in coming. The truth is that I'm currently spending a month in France, and this chapter was a veritable nightmare to edit even if I had been able to stay home the entire time. It doesn't help, either, that it's actually two chapters combined yet again into one. So I hope it was worth the wait, and I hope I did the amount of work needed to make it acceptable for consumption. I only have a couple of more weeks here before I head back to the states, which means I'll soon be back on a more even posting schedule.


	21. Ch 20: Value of Life

**Chapter 20 - Value of Life **

* * *

A week had passed since Natquik and Miyo left Hikoshu, and yet they traveled in silence. Well, not silence exactly. They talked, and joked, and got along just fine. But there was a certain uneasiness to Miyo's demeanor that changed as quickly as the weather. One morning, she would smile and tease, but by the afternoon, the sky would cloud over and so would she.

Not that Natquik hadn't known this about her. He remembered many similar afternoons when they last traveled together, when her mood frequently reflected her current thoughts. But so much had happened since then, and he found he needed more time to adjust to it now. Unfortunately, his own mood fluctuated with hers, which was something he had never been used to. So it led to some days when they would banter like old friends and others when they wouldn't talk at all.

This was one such day. Natquik had given up annoying her with small talk and had slipped to the back of the saddle, where he occupied himself with whittling an old pine knot. Whittling what, he didn't know. It kind of looked like a caribou-elk had mated with one of the Earth Kingdom's ostrich-horses to produce a caribelkorstrich, and then gained a lot of weight. He thought he'd been trying for a fisherman, though.

It was probably because he had no real artistic gift, but Natquik liked to pretend it was because he was distracted. When Miyo became quiet, he didn't have much to do but think. And Natquik was not an introspective man. So during these awkward times when he couldn't take his mind off of his thoughts with some terrible whittling, he had to think about the future.

If he wasn't introspective, at least he was honest. And Natquik would admit to himself, if not to anyone else, that he was very anxious about the future. For most of his life, his path had been pretty clear-cut: grow up, marry the Water Tribe princess. There had been little opportunity to dream of other possibilities, or contemplate what he actually wanted. In fact, Natquik's passive acceptance of his fate seemed the only way to genuine happiness. The arrival of Hikoshu, however, had changed all of that.

The tribunal's decree that his actions to take away the Avatar's bending had amounted to an unforgivable offense should have led to Natquik's banishment from either Tribe. The fact that it simply resulted in the stripping of all of his titles and his exile to the South Pole was a testament to how powerful Hikoshu's influence was, though Hikoshu didn't quite know it. But because of his friend, Natquik was suddenly thrust into a life that had never been open to him; he became a Shaman, a healer, and a teacher. He found a purpose for his talents, and a reason for existing well outside of the sphere of the Royal Family.

And now, a life he'd never imagined having was the only life he could ever fathom wanting. How doubly tragic, then, was the North's decision that his punishment had been met and his penance served. Natquik was so tightly bound to traditions that even nearly robbing the world of its only hope for peace could not free him from his duties. But now he knew what existed beyond the confines of those traditions, and as he returned to his former world, Natquik found himself thinking dark thoughts that wouldn't have occurred to him otherwise.

He wasn't an introspective man. But the 'what if's were making him that way.

Miyo easily belonged to those 'what if's. She was part of the abrupt shift that had changed his entire world-view and introduced him to an unpredictable path. She was also part of the dark thoughts that floated through his mind whenever she stopped talking. He had always been able live in the present, and when she was happy, he never looked forward. But then she fell silent, and he was forced to think of the future, when he couldn't hide on the back of a bison and whittle a caribelkorstrich…which actually looked pregnant now. He wondered what _it_ had ended up mating with. Maybe a penguin?

"That's hideous." From the front of the bison wafted an unmistakable odor, and Miyo's nasally voice broke through his thoughts. He glanced up to find her leaning over the saddle, the wind blowing her hair into her eyes and sticking strands against her lips. "What is it?"

"Akna, a fertility spirit. Takes the form of a lovely young woman." Natquik had long ago grown used to the whistle of the bison's airbending, which could drown out most casual conversation. Because of it, he had to speak louder, and to his buffeted ears, his own voice sounded hollow.

"Looks like a caribou-elk got together with a boarcupine." He frowned at the little wooden statue. Maybe it did. "We're landing early today."

"Why's that?" Without looking up at her, Natquik started to shave off the fourth leg, his knife handle braced firmly in the dip of his palm.

"Because Tehsa's exhausted and I need a bath."

"Sorry about that. I didn't know what a skunk-goat was."

She gave him a withering look as she tugged the hair from her mouth, the early afternoon sun lending severity to her dirt-streaked cheeks. "And do you often slaughter and eat strange creatures you've never seen before?"

"What can I say? I have a natural curiosity." Straightening, he tucked his knife back into its sheath under his coat. "But it does remind me that I need to get in some hunting."

As always, she was visibly repulsed by the idea of him killing. But they'd had the argument enough times that there was no reason to have it again. Neither was going to change the other's mind. "Well, just do it far from me. I don't want to have to bathe twice." Then she disappeared.

The clearing that they landed in looked just like every other clearing they'd landed in. Admittedly, there were small differences. They had passed over the low hills of the South, the jagged mountain ranges of Omashu, and the rolling plains of the midland. Now they were entering mountains again, which were much more vibrant than their southern counterparts, covered in conifers that grew despite the occasional snow, with rounded peaks that occasionally filtered through the clouds.

But to Natquik, it all looked about the same. Sometimes yellow, sometimes green, yet always rocky. Even when the animals changed, their habitats rarely did, and he'd learned through his previous travels in the Earth Kingdom how to hunt. So he hitched up his water skin and his satchel and prepared to head out into the thicket that surrounded their temporary campsite, only stopping long enough to hear Miyo's last instruction.

"Stay east of here. I don't want to see whatever you kill."

Natquik was glad to oblige. Something about Miyo's repugnance for the deaths of living things made him feel bad about causing them. Which was absolutely ridiculous; the Water Tribes had long ago made peace with the necessary killing, appreciating the animals that allowed them to survive in their harsh environment. And he never ate anything to which he didn't offer his gratitude, first. Still, the look Miyo gave him when he smoked his catches made him uncomfortable. Like, perhaps, he should feel guilty.

These were yet more dark thoughts that followed him through the woods, occupying his mind as he scouted game trails. Above him, bare branches and straggly bunches of evergreen needles swayed across the creeping sun, and under his feet, indistinct shadows dappled the still-moist dirt. He walked the paths wordlessly, ignoring the larger trails in favor of tinier ones—ones that were marked only by broken twigs and upturned leaves. The large trails were likely used by big animals, and the occasional scat that littered them said the same. Natquik didn't need to hunt anything big. It would take too much effort to catch them, too much mess to clean them, and then too much time to prepare the meat for the journey.

Plus the added effort of following tracks of smaller animals, hardly distinguishable from the undergrowth, kept him distracted. Natquik had to listen for sounds beyond the listless calls of unfamiliar birds, and he had to scan continuously for movements independent of his own. On occasion, he'd feel the invisible pull of nearby mud puddles created from recent rain, or sense dew clinging to the bottom of fern leaves as he brushed by them. These, however, were the only hints he had of his natural habitat, and as a stranger in _this_ habitat, he opened his mind to opportunities he might otherwise have ignored.

As Natquik walked, he carefully sifted through branches that had snapped loose either from animals or windstorms, searching for ones that were both stout and light. Some of the wood was still green, leaving sticky sap on his fingers and knife, and he stripped their bark for the wood fibers. These, he rolled into little balls as he navigated around mounds of rock jutting from the mountainside. Natquik wasn't sure what animals he was hunting, like the skunk-goat of the day before. Again, though, a decade-and-a-half of field experience had lent him some generalities that he could apply to any situation. So while he couldn't be certain that the roughshod, mud-straw huts that eventually peeked through the trees ahead of him belonged to the ruby-snouted bandicoon, he was certain they housed _something. _And the freshness of the mud that cemented the knee-high grass structures told him that the 'something' was likely still active for the season, too.

Natquik didn't approach the huts, settling close by the game trail that led to them instead. Scat on the needle-carpeted floor contained the remnants of stick insects, and laying both his satchel and his water skin down, he scouted the nearby trees. Their branches eventually yielded one of the little creatures, its speed hindered by its long legs and its surety that camouflage would protect it. Then, collecting a heavy flagstone that had broken off from one of the rocky outcroppings, he returned to the path and set to work.

Creating a deadfall trap took time and an endless supply of patience. Such that, by the time Natquik finished precariously balancing the flat rock on his harvested twig and sticking the stick bug to the stone with his sap ball, the shadows of the trees had deepened with late afternoon. Satisfied, he sat back on his heels to admire his handiwork, which he'd crafted with far more skill than his woodcarving of earlier. Unfortunately, it was only the first of three traps which he'd have to construct before it became too dark to see. But if any one of them paid off, Natquik would be eating something tomorrow that wasn't Miyo's strange-tasting vegetables, and that alone gave him the motivation to continue. Dusting off his knees, he pushed himself to his feet.

The low growl of a nearby animal gave him pause. Turning, he caught sight of a gray-and-white-striped boater's fox in the underbrush, its distinctive paddle-shaped tail and wide-cupped ears giving the creature its name. These it laid flat with forceful menace, though the tiny animal hardly posed any threat to Natquik's good humor. Yet his pleasant mood quickly vanished as he saw what the furry little animal now clutched in its furry little mouth. His good water skin, made out of quality tiger-seal stomach.

Though the fox didn't know it, it had just written its own death sentence, and Natquik pulled his knife from his belt. The fox growled again, poised low in the leafless brush, its blue, feral eyes communicating its ferocity. As if daring him to make the first move. Natquik waited a long moment, then snapped his arm back to hurl his knife at the beast's head.

Sap still clung to the handle, causing him to throw the blade wide of its mark. Even before the knife landed with a dull 'clunk' in the ground, the fox was gone through the forest, a streak of white against the deep brown of the undergrowth. Cursing under his breath, Natquik quickly collected the weapon and his satchel, then dashed after it.

The fox's coloring was meant for ponds rather than trees, the gray-and-white stripes blending in with shadowed waters. Because of this, it stood out against the forest floor, providing Natquik's only hope of catching the creature. Small though that hope was, Natquik persevered in his chase, crashing through brambles and tumbling down short rock faces whose precipices were too abrupt to see. Desperate to find water where it could hide, the fox persevered as well, its oil-coated fur flashing iridescent rainbows in the last vestiges of sunlight as it placed more and more distance between him and his water skin. But without that water skin, Natquik would be essentially defenseless, his waterbending not strong enough to use the air as a source. So panting hard, his face scratched more than once by undetected branches, Natquik fought a quickly losing battle.

He felt the water before he saw it—the sizeable source of a hidden pond tugging at his _chi_. The realization that his foe, now lost in a stand of laurel trees that blocked his view, had finally reached its destination spurred Natquik into a renewed sense of desperation, and discarding his satchel beside a fallen log, he dodged through the barrier of trunks. But water didn't greet him when he emerged. At least, not at first. Instead, he stumbled onto a black-pebbled bank, and a wide pond stretched in front of him. That was all he had time to see—that, and a flash of blue, and brown, and the soft flesh tones of bare skin as the air rippled and condensed. Acting with a sense of instinct that saved him more often than sheer luck, Natquik leapt back on his foot, jerking one hand high as the other curved across his midsection. In response, water rushed up at the edge of the bank, forming an ice shield to protect him.

It rocked violently under an invisible gust of wind, the trees whipping and groaning to either side of him. For a moment, Natquik feared the wall would break and shower him with ice needles, which would only be a precursor to the barrage he knew would greet him once he lowered his defense. As a result, he held the shield until the quaking trees had settled, and until he'd gathered his composure well enough to face the new threat.

When he melted the ice into the water, Natquik could find no trace of the fox. The pond that lay before him was clear, shallow enough that the rounded black pebbles of the shores followed a lazy incline into its depths. All along the perimeter of the dark beach, stands of laurel and ginkgo grew, their green and bronze leaves catching the reflection of the pond such that a forest sprouted in the water, the violet azure of the early-evening sky encompassed in its center. And towering over all of it was a cropped mountain peak, deceptively close behind the distant trees.

Then in the midst of the trembling forest reflection was Miyo, up to her neck in the water, her face a startling pink that reached her high-set hairline and made her blue arrow practically glow. Her expression was a mixture of indignation and horror, which filled him with inexplicable guilt. Beside her, resting atop a rocky projection on which he was sure she'd been sitting when he arrived, were her neatly folded robes.

"Dear spirits, Miyo, it's just me." Despite his best attempts at composure, Natquik heard his voice quaver a little too much for his liking. In response, Miyo waded closer to the rock, her hair, half-loose from its bun, trailing behind her.

"I know it's you." Her own voice still held her shock, but there was accusation in her gaze. "What are _you _doing here?"

"I had a run-in with a little thief." His anxiety lessened the more certain Natquik became that Miyo wasn't going to unleash her bending on him, but the air still prickled with the tension of their encounter. In an attempt to dispel it, he crouched at the edge of the shore and scooped up a handful of thick, wet gravel, clumps dripping from his fingers. With his elbows balanced against his knees, he scrubbed at the sap that covered his palm. "Don't suppose you saw a boater's fox and a water skin come through here?"

"I'm _naked_."

"Yeah. I see your clothes next to you."

"Natquik…" His easygoing attitude didn't put her at ease; in fact, it had the opposite effect, offending her even more, and she clutched the rock in front of her with barely controlled frustration, her damp hair framing the striking gray of her irate eyes.

"I'm a healer. Believe me, I've seen my share of undressed women. You have nothing that would surprise me." That may have been a bit untrue; after all, no Water Tribe woman had those same tattoos, which touched the tips of her knuckles and traced a path along her arms. Natquik didn't know where they ended, as this was the most of her skin he'd ever seen. Perhaps they followed the curve of her back, past her hips, and to the gentle dip in—

Startled, Natquik shied away from the thought. He hadn't intended to think about her like that, but suddenly, he felt as if he'd been spying on her from the trees all along. The heated flush that crept up Miyo's neck implied that she thought the same.

"You need to leave. Now." There was no leniency in her voice—no shred of doubt that gave room for his innocence. Not that Natquik was in any position to plead his case; his conscience was too busy upbraiding him for his lascivious thoughts, and his mind was too busy dwelling on how much of her skin must be blushing below the water, too.

One thing, though, was certain: Natquik agreed that he needed to leave. "Don't worry, I'm going. All I wanted was my water skin." Which he really had no hope of finding now, nor was he going to get any more traps set. The afternoon had fast become a waste, if not an outright disaster. He stood, wiping the remaining gravel on the hem of his coat, and held up a hand in apology before turning away. Miyo would likely forgive him for the intrusion, but not until she'd had a few hours to think about it. So while he waited for the awkwardness to pass, Natquik intended to find his satchel. And pray in the meantime the rotten fox hadn't returned to eat the meager portions of seal jerky he'd saved inside.

Before Natquik had reached the boundary of the trees, however, Miyo's sharp gasp and the sound of sloshing water made him look back. She had pushed away from the rock, her back toward him as she swept her gaze over the pond, one hand clasped protectively against her shoulder. She hesitated, then jutted her palm into the water, creating a breeze that left a foamy wake on the surface.

His curiosity getting the better of him, Natquik lingered on the beach. "What happened?"

"Something bit me," she mumbled as she drew her hand back to examine her fingers, the embarrassing talk of earlier now forgotten. "I think it was a snake."

Suddenly, the encounter was wiped from Natquik's mind, too, as icy spears of dread skewered his chest. Moving without registering the action, he went back to the shore, but this time he dipped low at his knees, sliding the front foot along the pebbles as he circled his hands about his chest and shoved forward. In response, a track of ice shot across the surface of the water, toward the rock outcrop that held Miyo's clothes. Yet before it had even solidified, Natquik was sprinting over the frozen bridge.

Water snakes were too well known in the South, too well feared for him to take the threat of one lightly. Perhaps the continental species were innocuous, and as Natquik dropped to a crouch on the rock, Miyo's robes tumbling into the water before him, he fervently prayed that was true. But he couldn't take that chance. Ignoring the alarmed questions that Miyo kept repeating, her voice high and shaky, Natquik stuck his fingers into the water. Ripples danced on the surface, and he had to close his eyes to feel each one. They came from a thousand sources, a chorus of gentle vibrations that drowned each other out as they caressed his palm. He needed to search them all, just as he would follow the paths of _chi _in the body, looking for one—just one—

"What are you doing?" Miyo asked from behind him. Had asked more than once, he realized, but Natquik chose not to answer, his eyes snapping open as the snake came into 'view' with his bending. Rising slowly to his feet, he drew up his hands, and in response, a sphere of water emerged from the pristine blue sky reflection that quivered in the center of the pond. He couldn't be certain it was _her _snake, but he couldn't find any other. Not quickly enough, at least, and so he pulled the sphere toward him as Miyo tugged fitfully at his pant leg just above his boot. Looking down, Natquik saw that she'd wrapped her robes haphazardly around her, her gaze focused with dread on the shimmering orb.

"Natquik, what are you going to do to it?"

"I'm going to kill it." The water hovered in front of him now, and he could make out the snake, though he still didn't know what kind it was. The reptile writhed inside its shifting prison, unable to break through the surface tension his bending had created. Its scales were hidden under a thick coat of fur or wool that twisted violently with its movements, lending it an illusion of size. "Stay back."

"Don't!"

Her pleas went unheard as Natquik held the sphere suspended in front of him and gently breathed out. From the bottom of the sphere, the water quivered and began to freeze. Upward, the ice crept, and inside the snake's frantic struggle reached new heights of distress.

"Natquik, stop!" she repeated as the sphere became a ball of ice. Soon, the snake was nothing more than a silhouette whose movements quickly slowed as the ice leached the life from its body. It would be dead in moments, either drowned or frozen, and then he could set to work.

A wind slammed into Natquik so abruptly that he didn't have a chance to brace against it. The ice forgotten, he swung his arms out to catch himself, but there was nothing to catch himself with. Cold water raced up to meet him, engulfing him as the world momentarily inverted. His vision filled with bubbles and darkness, and he had to find the gravel bed with his feet before he could find the surface.

He came up, spluttering, just in time to see Miyo bring the ball of ice down with all of her strength against the rock. It shattered into five pieces, revealing the damp, red-mottled fur of the bizarre Earth Kingdom snake beneath. Now freed, the snake lay limp on the stone, its body jerking weakly with minute traces of life, but Natquik suspected it was only stunned. So he dove forward with an awkward splash, the pebbled bottom giving his feet no purchase as he slid back into the water. By the time he regained his balance, the snake had recovered and slithered off its perch, lost in the anonymous ripples of the pond.

He still could catch it. The waves produced by his fall had wiped out the animal's subtle wake, but he knew it couldn't be far. He just had to flatten the water—smooth the surface and look for the serpentine disturbance of its body. Yet as Natquik lifted his hands to attempt the nearly impossible task of removing every ripple on the pond, Miyo suddenly sprung in front of him and snatched his wrist from the air. "I said stop!"

"I need its blood." He tried to yank his arm free, and almost threw her in the water as a result. But she held tight, her fingers digging into the skin just below his sodden cuff.

"Leave it alone! It's just a snake."

"I can't heal snake bites, Miyo!"

The panic Natquik had been denying flooded his voice, and he finally met her gaze with the full force of his urgency. Her look, however, brought him up short. She was soaked, locks of her hair plastered to her cheeks and forehead. Her naked shoulders shook both from the effort of holding his arm and retaining her modesty, as her free arm clutched the orange robes against her breasts and stomach. They clung to her waist and floated lazily in the water near her hips, yet Miyo didn't notice the haphazard way she covered herself. Her eyes were focused solely on him, the strength of her grip promising that whatever it took, she intended to stop him.

"Don't hurt it," she said lowly.

Natquik couldn't fight her. Even when every lesson he'd learned, every bit of his healer instinct stated that he was making a mistake, Natquik found himself unable to battle the stern sincerity that she leveled on him. "I know you don't understand, and I know you don't agree. But please, let me do this."

Some of the vulnerability he was feeling must have come through with his words; almost as soon as he finished speaking, Miyo's unwavering gaze seemed to falter. Even the tight clench of her fingers lessened, and for a moment, Natquik thought that she might relent. But then the color abruptly drained from her cheeks, turning her skin a sickly white as her eyes rolled into her head, and her body swayed backwards. Natquik barely caught her before she collapsed.

"Miyo? No!" He lifted her to the rock and bended clear the broken ice shards before laying her down. Her head rolled away lifelessly as he pressed two fingers to her throat, her skin already clammy with the wet and cold. There in her neck, he found a thready pulse, which seemed to ebb and flow with her shallow breaths.

He had to get her warm, he had to get the venom out, he had to recapture the snake—Natquik had to do a thousand things at once, and he didn't even know where to begin. But while his mind struggled to organize itself into the stepwise fashion that such situations required, Natquik felt Miyo fading under his fingers. Terror finally prompted him to move, and he gathered her up again, his hands snagging in her hair as he held her.

He needed dry land. But in order to get there, Natquik would have to relinquish any hope of catching the snake, which he would also need if he wanted to save her. He paused in that tense moment, torn between two decisions that both seemed to result inevitably in death. But the moment passed quickly—he couldn't waste any more time, and with a cry of frustration, Natquik swooped his hand low over the water. In response, a swell rose from the pond, and he hugged Miyo to his chest as the wave pushed them upward, lifting them off the rock. Then they were rushing toward the shore, propelled by his bending, and Natquik shoved the thought of the snake from his mind.

The decision was made; the bones had been thrown. All he could do now was get to the beach, and pray that Miyo hadn't just given her life to save another.


	22. Ch 21: A Chilly Awakening

**Chapter 21 - A Chilly Awakening**

* * *

Miyo couldn't remember her drefams. She rarely ever dreamt, actually, which had always disappointed her. Though she often admonished herself for it, she found she secretly envied those who did—those who were free of earthly shackles both during the night as well as the day. Perhaps the reason the spirits never sent her dreams was to serve as a sign that she should learn humility, and to appreciate the freedoms she'd been given while awake. So she worked hard on being humble, while every night she hoped that maybe she would dream.

Yet these weren't the kinds of dreams she wanted. They were literally nightmares, that chased her from one land to another. Over the tundras of the poles, past the walls of Ba Sing Se. Across the desert and through the ranges, back to the camps fon the steppes where she had been just a child, helping her mother twist the wool into thin fibers to use for their clothing.

Twisting, pulling. Almost a ritual, as her mother sang over the thread. Miyo didn't remember the words, nor could she hear the tune. But the worn, leathery face that sung the song was almost a song itself. She stopped to hand Miyo the yellowed ivory spindle, and then she dug a blanket from the hearthside, a brilliant patchwork of blue and orange that showed the frayed edges of long use.

"You are so cold, _bomka_. Your toes are numb." Miyo couldn't remember the sound of her mother's voice, but she remembered the love. There was love as she folded the blanket across Miyo's lap, and love buried in her smile. "A girl who cannot keep her feet warm will not walk to her wedding. Do you know that, _bomka_?"

_I won't have a wedding, ama_, she whispered, though her six-year-old self never spoke. She wasn't an airbender yet; she wouldn't know for another year that cold air could never touch her. And yet her feet _were_ cold—icy and uncomfortable. Why? The fire that cast deep lines over her mother's face didn't impart any heat. The blanket, though its wool looked soft and inviting, didn't warm her legs. Drawn by the beautiful diamond shapes, Miyo stared deeply into the fabric and stroked the well-brushed warp as her mother once more returned to twisting and singing. Twisting and singing.

That silent song still haunted her as she shifted, half in sleep. She could feel the wool now, softer than she even remembered, and warm against her bare skin. Miyo luxuriated in the feeling, twisting inside it like the thread between her mother's fingers, enveloping herself in dreams.

Until a sharp pain stabbed through her shoulder, pulling her abruptly from sleep. Her eyes flew open, her thoughts disoriented as darkness greeted her. The anonymity of the night gave her no context, however, and Miyo blinked several times as her mother's tent slowly faded from her memory. Instead of sitting, she was now lying on her back, a star-speckled sky rather than a tanned-hide tarp above her. With a quiet groan, she propped herself on one elbow, and hissed as her shoulder once more protested the movement. But the sting quickly became a dull throb, and it slipped from her mind as she scanned her surroundings.

Beside her, only a few feet away, was a fire that had burned into embers. This provided the sole source of light, its faint glow too dim to illuminate much beyond the stones lining the pit. From all appearances, Miyo was in the campsite. Yet she didn't remember setting up camp, and she certainly didn't remember going to bed.

Her feet were freezing. The strange sensation finally registered to her, and with a frown, Miyo leaned forward to examine her legs. She was wearing her robes, but not the way she was supposed to be wearing them; most of her nun's habit had been piled on top of her feet, with the yellow shawl wrapped tightly around her knees and thighs. The soft wool that she had felt in her dream Miyo now recognized as Natquik's coat, which she'd been dressed in at some point, the fur hanging wide at her neck. Dully, she tugged at the sleeves, uncertain if the dead animal skin was simply another part of her dream.

The rustling of brush, out of sight behind her, sent her scrambling into a defensive stance. The robes tangled around her legs, however, and she fell back on her hip, her head swimming. Nausea fought with shock, forcing her to lie back again on her elbows. "Miyo?" Fortunately, the newcomer was Natquik, whose figure weaved around the muted firelight and bent over to unload an armful of wood by the pit. She couldn't see his expression, but the copper-bone necklace glinted around his neck, no longer hidden by the fur-lined collar of his missing coat. "How are you feeling?"

"I need to get this off," she said woodenly, pulling the deep lavender-blue fur away from her skin. It felt lush and comforting, and smelled pleasantly of him, but it was horribly wrong. The very thought of what she was wearing made her stomach turn.

Kneeling beside her, Natquik was unimpressed with the complaint. "Yeah, well, I need you in it. Lean forward."

"_Why_ am I in it?" She obeyed him, though she didn't have much choice. His insistent hand on her shoulder and her muddled thoughts made it hard to fight.

"Because I needed to warm you up fast." Suddenly, he pulled the neck of the coat down her arm, and she nearly jerked away as it exposed her shoulder and back to the cold. Natquik shoved off her one protesting hand. "The snakebite sent you into shock. And this and a fire were the only options I had. Well, outside of using my own body heat." He paused, and she supposed he was giving her one of his quirky grins. She felt too hazy to be properly offended.

But his words did jog a faint memory, and it helped to dispel some of the fog that clung to her thoughts like webs. "Is…is the snake alright?" How horrible. Natquik had nearly frozen it to death in front of her; the icy numbness in her toes ceased to hurt and now only reminded her of the poor creature's last moments.

"I'm sure it's fine. It swam away." He put pressure on the bite, and she winced. The pain, however, was dwarfed by her embarrassment at his ministrations—at the undignified position she had awaken to find herself in. Natquik didn't seem to notice, rubbing gently at the wound, and she realized he was smearing something cool against her skin. Some sort of salve? It smelled strange, like garlic and mint, and her stomach churned again.

"I'm sorry," he eventually murmured. "About the snake."

"You were trying to help." The nausea made her head spin, but the rubbing felt good, his fingers kneading the sore muscle over her shoulder blade. Weakly, she pressed a hand to her eyes and tried to focus on that sensation. "Why did you need it, anyway?"

"I can't heal snakebites." Natquik stopped and got to his feet, causing Miyo to tilt backward as he removed his support. She barely caught herself on her palm. "Waterbending helps the body to repair. But venoms, poisons, toxins, things like that—they mix in the blood and keep causing damage, even after you've healed the bite itself. It's like trying to stitch a wound with the spear still in it."

He stooped by the fire to throw more branches on the embers, then picked through another pile nearby. In the meantime, Miyo shivered; Natquik's body still blocked the firelight as he knelt over his work, and she wished he'd move out of the way. "The usual treatment for a snakebite is a poultice made out of tundra ingredients," he continued, "the most important being the snake's blood. The poultice draws the venom out, neutralizes it. And if the snake is venomous enough, it's pretty much the only thing that will save you." His voice was somber in a way that set her nerves on edge. "So I'm doing the best I can with what I've got."

"Am I going to be all right?" She certainly didn't feel fine. And though she couldn't see the look he shot her, Miyo could read plenty in his silence. "I'm not?"

"I don't know." Natquik resumed whatever he was doing. "I don't know anything about the snakes here. But you woke up. That can only be a good sign."

His reassurance did little to mollify her, but dwelling on what damage the venom was wreaking on her body seemed unproductive. So she changed her focus to something she could help. "Where's Tehsa?" This wasn't the clearing they had landed in. Now that the fire had caught, throwing a wider circle of light on their surroundings, Miyo could see that the trees were too close, their branches swaying through the billowing smoke. And if Tehsa had been nearby, she would've made her presence known by now.

"I didn't want to carry you back. Didn't think I had time."

"She doesn't know where we are?" Miyo received no answer. "I have to find her. She's probably terrified. Or maybe hurt." She kicked the robes off her frozen legs and tried to get to her knees. The motion set off another wave of nausea, which she ignored just as pointedly as the stiffness in her shoulder.

"Tehsa is doing better than you are right now." As soon as she started to move, Natquik was back at her side, wrapping an arm around her to force her down. "Can you just let me take care of this?"

"Hurry. I have to look for her."

Miyo could tell he didn't think she was very coherent. And maybe she wasn't entirely. But she couldn't leave Tehsa out there to fend for herself—not without losing desperately-needed sleep over it. So as Natquik plied a leaf-wrap of something that smelled like roasted meat and salt grass to her shoulder, she sorted through her robes. They were dry, probably through Natquik's bending as he attempted to keep her warm. The coat only reached just above her knees, and after that, he'd covered as much of her skin as he could without specifically dressing her. Probably to protect some of her modesty, Miyo thought with chagrin.

It didn't matter anymore. There was too much to worry about. She didn't even pull away as Natquik pushed the coat further down her back in order to wrap strips of cloth under her arm to hold the poultice in place. She didn't help him, either, though, and he struggled past both the coat and her hair.

"You can't change back into those," he said at one point near her ear, trying to wrap the bandage around her other arm to anchor it.

"I'm not wearing your coat." Her head had cleared a bit, and her resolve had returned with the newfound clarity.

"Well, then you'll need to wear something else of mine. I can't change these bandages without you completely disrobing, in yours."

"I thought I had nothing that'd surprise you," Miyo snapped, and immediately regretted it. Something was terribly wrong, beyond the strange blurriness in her thoughts and the wrenching feeling in her stomach. She'd assumed it was the coat, or maybe Natquik, or maybe Tehsa. But _something_ was wrong. "I'm sorry, Natquik. I appreciate this."

"No, you don't," he said, humor infusing his voice. "Can you stand?"

"Maybe." Suddenly, Miyo was lifted into the air, Natquik's arm tight around her waist as he pulled her to her feet. Again, her head rocked with the motion, and she had to grasp his shoulder when he released her. But she was still standing, she noted with relief. Sick, half-naked, and freezing, but still standing.

"What are you doing?" she mumbled, trying to focus her eyes. The world spun darkly, and when it stopped, Natquik was in front of her, untying the leather belt around his waist.

"You said you had to get Tehsa." He made it sound like such an obvious explanation. "And you needed to change."

"But…aren't you going to force me to stay here?" She couldn't lean on him anymore as he pulled his lapels back, shrugging off the thicker blue outer layer of his robes, then the lighter, inner one.

"No." Natquik must've thought she'd fall again, because he caught her arm. At least it made her feel more stable. "Do you need help changing?"

"No," Miyo said quickly, and felt herself blushing for the first time that evening. The heat in her cheeks was a stark contrast to the frozen tips of her ears, and something akin to normalcy.

"Well, hurry. I want my coat back." Again, his voice was mirthful, and he started to push his robes into her arms. But she stopped him with a hand on his chest and searched his shadowed face. His back to the fire, he remained cloaked in darkness, only the barest hint of his eyes visible.

"Thank you, Natquik." She meant it for everything. For saving her, for staying with her, and for understanding her now. Miyo couldn't read his reaction, nor did she really want to. The tension in that silence was already too charged.

"Next time, let me kill the snake," he finally said, and urged her once more to accept the robes. When she'd collected them and seemed capable of standing on her own, he took his leave of the camp.

Dressing was quite a task. In fact, pulling the coat off by itself exhausted her, as it required lifting her arms. The bandages weren't painful, but were restrictive, and Miyo was now grateful for Natquik's robes. Her habit, though made of a less cumbersome fabric than his, still had to be pulled on over her head, the collar a tedious thing that would require drawing her hair through first so as not to choke her. Natquik's robes, however, she merely slipped over her shoulders, the wool baggy on her but not nearly as overwhelming as his coat. When she cinched the two layers around her waist with her own saffron-colored sash, the lapels bundled awkwardly between her breasts, but hung straight down her thighs. Finally, she donned her own pants and shoes, her limbs warming slightly under the thin cotton of both.

The resulting amalgam of clothing must have produced an odd sort of fashion, though she had no energy left to care, feeling worn as she raked her fingers futilely through her hair. She also felt colder—a lot colder, as if the robes didn't provide nearly the same protection that the furs had. Shivering hard, Miyo stacked more wood on the fire from the pile Natquik had accumulated and waited for it to catch.

He returned as she was folding the remaining robes, his voice floating ahead of him. When she said he could enter, Natquik slipped through the trees, rubbing at his arms for heat. She finally noticed that the wrappings he'd always used to keep snow out of his sleeves were missing from his wrists; she suspected that he had employed them to hold her poultice in place.

"Did you have any trouble?" he said, his voice muffled as he tugged his coat over his head. Miyo shrugged under the poorly-fitting clothes.

"They're not quite as warm as airbender robes."

"Well, they're definitely warmer than being naked." She had to agree with that, giving him a half-smile. When his head reappeared, Natquik returned the smile and tugged his hair straight. "Ready to go find Tehsa?"

She was actually ready to go to sleep, but she nodded and pushed away the nauseated feeling as she got to her feet once more. Natquik lit a length of timber, a makeshift torch, and took his place by her side. With his arm around her waist, he encouraged her to lean on him while they walked. Grateful, she rested her head against his shoulder and tried not to stumble.

Unfortunately, Natquik didn't know the path to their original campsite, having come in a more roundabout way, and in the dark, Miyo had trouble figuring out the route she had taken. But between them, they muddled through it, Natquik's sense of direction combined with her vague memory guiding their steps. To be safe, she occasionally called out to Tehsa, hoping the bison would respond.

Despite her queasiness, and the general malaise that hadn't yet faded, Miyo actually enjoyed the walk. Enjoyed leaning into Natquik as they tried to orient themselves to the forest, enjoyed the heat that slipped through his coat and from the torch. Enjoyed the feeling of protection within that halo of light. It was a feeling of companionship and caring—something she'd sorely missed since she'd lost Hikoshu to the North Pole years before. It helped to lessen her worry over Tehsa. And, more importantly, it dimmed that sensation of _wrongness_ that lurked just below her skin.

They found Tehsa some time later, after the moon had risen and given them a little extra assistance in seeking out the clearing. The bison was asleep on her back with an apparent lack of concern, though two splintered trees nearby indicated that she might have been more upset earlier in the day. Now she snored loudly by their packs, her large breaths having pushed Natquik's sleeping roll into the surrounding trees. Groaning and muttering something about bison snot, Natquik handed her the torch as he headed off to retrieve it. Without his support or warmth, Miyo fought back a tremble and brushed at the bison's ear until she woke up.

Tehsa's reaction was immediate; she flipped over onto her belly, the action so fast and so ungraceful that the entire clearing shook as she planted her six massive paws firmly on the ground. Rumbling loudly in delight, she gave Miyo a full body lick, nearly knocking her over in the process. A moment later, though, she realized what Miyo was wearing, and hacked unpleasantly. Miyo simply beamed as she hugged the bison's head.

From outside of the torchlight, Natquik gave another groan. "Oh, come on. Don't let it drool on my clothes."

"She's just making them cleaner," Miyo hummed, folding herself into the thick, pungent bison fur. Tehsa nudged her, then licked her again, the enormous tongue pulling on her so hard that it literally lifted her off the ground. Natquik shouted somewhere behind her, but she laughed, clinging to the bison's nose as she was dragged into the air.

"For the love of—Miyo, get down! You dropped the torch!"

"Fine, fine." The torch had fallen somewhere below them, extinguished in its descent, such that only the moon caught Tehsa's large brown eyes. The sweet earnestness that filled them spoke silently of a miserable afternoon, now forgotten in the revelation that she wasn't alone. Miyo felt her heart seamlessly meld with the bison's, and briefly, they were of one thought. But Natquik wouldn't be happy until she was on the ground, and with a final, fond hug, she lightly hopped off Tehsa's nose.

She landed hard. Too hard.

Surprised, Miyo collapsed on the ground, her legs unable to support her. They hurt where her knees had smashed into the dirt, and she stared at them with a wave of confusion. She'd airbended, she was certain of it. But why then was the landing so rough?

"You alright?" Natquik was above her, offering her a hand, only his silhouette visible.

"Yeah, I…" Frowning, Miyo airbended herself to a stand. Or at least tried. But nothing happened; she remained seated, her legs twisted under her. "…no, I'm not."

"What's wrong?" Natquik knelt next to her, his hand on her head as if he could sense what was out of place. But she shook him off as anxiety replaced her confusion. What was wrong? She'd been wondering the same thing. Now, though, she suspected she knew exactly what. The feeling of wrongness, the odd sensation below her skin, the fact she was so very _cold—_cold, when an airbender never would be, because they had an innate ability to control the temperature of the air around them even without thinking about it. Pushing a hand against Natquik's chest, Miyo tried to airbend him away.

Her _chi_ moved, changing its course, taking form in her hand. But the air didn't respond.

"Natquik," she said, her voice wavering as the panic moved through her chest and found her throat. "Natquik, I can't bend."


	23. Ch 22: Flight into the Dark

**Chapter 22 - Flight into the Dark**

* * *

Hikoshu had witnessed Yan-lin's particular ingenuity in the past, but he was still grudgingly impressed by her expeditious handling of the earthbenders who had attacked them in the garden. As he explained to her, he didn't want to hurt them, and as she explained in turn, they had to be incapacitated at least until dawn. So she devised a simple yet elegant plan which involved tying them to the enormous table in his antechamber. All it required was keeping them wrapped in ice until he could transport them back into the room, then thawing them slowly while Yan-lin tied them up with scrapped fabric from his bed linens. Surprisingly, she knew even more knots than he did, considering that he had lived in the South Pole for years, and once again, Hikoshu reluctantly had to admit he was impressed. By the time she pulled the last knot tight, the three earthbenders in their dark costumes were all immobilized on the wooden table, unable to move their hands or feet, unable to touch stone. As Yan-lin stepped back to admire her ties, he stepped back to admire her creativity. But the moment passed, and she ushered him on.

"Pack light. People will notice if you're carrying a bag."

"I just need to change back into my old clothes," he said, and she was shaking her head even before he finished, the golden tassels of her headdress dancing.

"You'll stand out even more."

"And I won't in this?" Hikoshu gestured at the blue and gold silk of his outfit, stained with water on the upper half and saturated with mud on the lower. Not to mention the angry, red welt across his neck, which still throbbed with his heartbeat. Seeing his point, she glanced around the room with a frown.

"Well, change into something else gaudy. There's a party; they'll suspect you less if you were dressed for it."

So at her insistence, Hikoshu switched back into the brown long-robe that he'd worn when Miyo left. It lacked the elaborate embellishment of the other fanciful Omashu costumes; instead of shining gold hooks, three cloth buttons at the breast held the panels closed, and it hung straight to his shins, which meant that the tiger-seal boots he decided to wear despite Yan-lin's instructions didn't stand out too much. Plus the high collar hid the rope burn on his neck from view. Satisfied that he was as unobtrusive as a person dressed in silks could be, Hikoshu dug out from his Water Tribe coat the only item he'd kept with him over the past four years—the last note of his firebending master—and left the room.

Yan-lin was obviously unenthusiastic with his fashion selection, but she didn't comment, forcing him instead to turn around so that his back faced her. He wondered briefly what she planned to do, and winced as she tugged his topknot loose.

"You have to wear a queue, Hikoshu, or at least some semblance of one. Your usual hairstyle is like some sort of Avatar signaling beacon," she muttered against his protests, firmly braiding his hair. "You can change it once we're in the lower districts." After she finished, she studied him to her satisfaction, then checked the straps on the gagged but struggling earthbenders once more before she headed for the door. "If we leave before the party ends, we can steal a horstrich from the stables."

"Steal a horstrich?" he asked dubiously as they stepped out into the hall, and she motioned for him to be quiet. It was all a matter of looking inconspicuous now, and she apparently didn't think he could do that while talking.

As always during a party, the halls were nearly empty of people. No one left early, and the guards only watched the entrances to the palace or to special quarters, so Yan-lin strode through the jade hallways with confidence. It was something Hikoshu wished he could mirror, but just knowing that he was trying to sneak out made him feel like a fugitive. As a result, he hunched his shoulders self-consciously and almost stepped on the silvery hem of Yan-lin's trailing robe as he tried to keep up.

She guided him into halls that he'd never traveled before, despite the fact that he'd spent several days searching every turn. Within three corridors, he had lost his bearings, and lacking windows that let out on the mountain range, he had no way of knowing that they were even making progress. Only the furnishings and architecture gave hints that they were heading into new areas, though the suffocating olive-on-jade-colored walls were still unchanged. Marble tables that held sunrose flowers and camelephant statues at the intersections eventually disappeared, and the ornate columns that framed the entrances of the halls also dwindled, leaving corridors that were merely green-stone tunnels. After a while, Hikoshu also realized they were walking downhill. Sometimes they encountered a set of gilded stairs, sometimes it was just the hint of a gentle slope. But as they walked back-and-forth, seemingly going nowhere, they were most certainly going lower on the mountain.

The few people they did encounter were servants—men and women like Mei-li, dressed in nearly identical green robes trimmed with white, their heads crowned with tall matching hats. Though none looked up at them, each person paused to bend at the waist as they passed. Whether they recognized him as someone important or Yan-lin simply commanded that kind of reaction, Hikoshu couldn't guess. He was just happy they weren't soldiers.

Even the servants had vanished, though, by the time they reached the intersection of the last hall. Before they rounded the corner, Yan-lin stopped him with a hand on his shoulder and signaled for him to be quiet. "Just wait here," she whispered, and then she slipped into the intersecting corridor, leaving him alone.

In the ensuing silence, Hikoshu paused to think. There had been very little chance to do that all night, so he hadn't even considered the sequence of events that had brought him to this moment, to this hall, relying on the last person in the entire world he'd ever trust with his life. Absently, he studied the rectangular designs etched high in the wall opposite him, wondering if the spirits had engineered this ironic twist with some sort of lesson in mind. But hadn't it been his idea? Hikoshu reacted more often on pure instinct than careful analysis, and it usually steered him right. Usually.

"Yu, who's working the East Gate tonight?" Yan-lin's voice floated from around the corner. She sounded so bubbly, almost flirtatious, and he could hear the guards' laughs even if he couldn't hear their murmured responses. "No, Master Lianpo is trying to leave, but nobody's over there. He's throwing a fit." Again, more laughter. "Oh, gentlemen, be kind. You don't know how awful it is for us non-benders. We're just lucky that you're both here to look out for us."

The guards talked low, their words punctuated occasionally by Yan-lin's giggles, and the conversation stretched on long enough that it began to strain Hikoshu's patience. The more time that passed, the more concerned he became that someone would stumble on him skulking by the corner, suspiciously eavesdropping; growing restless, he worried his lip and flicked his fingers against the green-tinted stone.

"Well, could you take Kwa and check on the East Gate?" Yan-lin eventually said, signaling the end of whatever idle chatter had engaged them. "For me? You'll save me so much trouble with the Master Processor tomorrow, if you can get him outside. Besides…" Her voice dropped low enough that he couldn't hear it anymore. Whatever she said, however, caused an uproar of guffaws, the men almost wheezing at the comment. Then there was the clank of shifting armor, and words murmured with hints of finality.

Hikoshu clung tensely to the wall as their footsteps approached. But the men continued on down their own corridor, their scalloped armor and stiff robes blending effortlessly with the decor. Holding his breath, he watched as the backs of the soldiers quickly receded, the two of them laughing together. He was just starting to relax when Yan-lin grabbed his arm from around the corner and dragged him into the hall where the guards had been posted.

"I wish that hadn't been necessary," she muttered under her breath as she pulled him along. "If my father finds out I came through this way, they'll catch his anger." The new corridor wasn't really a corridor; much wider than the intersecting wings, it ended quite abruptly not fifteen paces in front of them as a smooth, blank wall framed on either side by pilasters of gold and topped by a similarly-carved arch. In the recessed spandrels to either side, two narrow windows pierced the stone, dark despite the constant, unwavering light of the ornate sconces below them.

"Yan-lin, I can't earthbend," he said, yanking his arm out of her grasp. The wall was obviously meant to be opened by a bender, the windows far too narrow to squeeze through. Frowning—a particularly odd expression with those painted red lips—she glanced back at him.

"I know you can't." She seized his arm again, lifting her silk skirts with her other hand. "Neither can I."

Just as they reached the blank wall, Yan-lin abandoned him in front of it. Hikoshu created a fire in his palm almost by instinct, raising his hand to carefully examine the stone for cracks. But it was perfectly finished, crafted by master benders who knew every nuance of their material. Doubtfully, he looked to Yan-lin, only to notice that she had removed the glow stones from one of the sconces, green light flashing across the pilaster's gilded surface as she tossed them carelessly on the floor. Then she tucked herself into the corner and stood unmoving, her back to him. Hikoshu stared in confusion, letting the flame go out, and opened his mouth to ask what she was doing when she suddenly began to jump. The scene was so bizarre that he was left speechless, and he continued to watch her for several uncomfortable moments.

"Come here," Yan-lin finally said, not turning around. Stuffing down his reservations about her apparent plan, Hikoshu neared the corner, and she reached behind her to take his arm. Then, wordlessly, she turned so that she faced him and yanked him closer.

Startled, Hikoshu reacted by stepping back, but Yan-lin grabbed his shoulder to hold him in place. "It's a counter-weight system. I'm not heavy enough." Even before she finished explaining, the floor began to sink under them. The abrupt jerk was enough to throw him off-balance, and only Yan-lin's hold on his shoulder kept him steady. Just as quickly, the movement stopped, leaving them in a circular hole as deep as his ankles, and beside them, the wall screeched open as a section of stone slipped into the ground. In moments, a slim, tall portal replaced the center of the wall, and a chilly breeze flowed from it. Yan-lin then pulled him out of the shallow hole, which immediately rose and caused the portal to slide shut, stone grating against stone. But before it could close completely, she had led him outside, crawling over the slowly rising wall.

"You know how the Fire Palace has firebending tunnels?" she whispered as they crossed a courtyard that looked more like a garden, the cold enveloping them. "Well, the Jade Palace has non-bending doors. Just in case a non-bending king can't get out. But only the king's supposed to know about it." She flashed him a delighted grin, as if using such an illicit secret was something she'd always wanted to do.

"How long do you think we'll have until those guards realize you lied?" he murmured as they took gravel paths through a veritable forest of ornamental, half-dead trees, dissected by a stagnant stream. Still holding onto his hand, she shook her head.

"A while. I didn't lie about the East Gate; Father keeps it unmanned on certain days so he can come and go in secret. And if we could've risked being seen by him, I would've used that gate instead."

"Won't there be more?" The courtyard itself was surrounded by a very high wall of gold sandstone, washed white in the moonlight. Hikoshu imagined that the contrivances used to escape the gates in that wall would be less convenient, and probably none of them were unguarded. Yet Yan-lin shushed him without answering his question and led him to a corner of the garden formed by the wall.

As they neared, though, he realized the corner wasn't actually a corner. Instead, the walls didn't quite come together, creating a narrow, looming passage out of the garden. She took him into this, and after a quick walk through the passage, so close that the walls scraped his shoulders, they both emerged into yet another section of the courtyard. This section was more practical than ornamental; the gravel expanse held a series of one-story buildings, long and box-like, and stretching so far that he couldn't see the end of them even in the moonlight.

"His Majesty's stables," she whispered again in explanation, guiding him to the closest one.

"Why does he need so many ostrich-horses?"

She shushed him sharply this time, squeezing the hand she still held. Fortunately, these buildings required no particular skill in bending, and the door in front of them was just a plain wooden slat with an iron ring. When Yan-lin pulled it open, a rank smell of animal and excrement hit him, causing him to hesitate. But with a hand on his back, she forced him in and shut the door behind them.

Now they were plunged into a warm, almost stuffy darkness, and all around him, Hikoshu could hear the shuffling of animals disturbed from their sleep by the rude entry. He didn't necessarily have a fear of strange creatures, but he definitely didn't have a fondness for them. Uneasy, he stood quietly until Yan-lin whispered for him to start a fire. The stables were wide enough that even with a flame, Hikoshu couldn't see both sides very well. The wall closest to them was made completely of stalls, the stone-and-wood frames holding beak-faced creatures that blinked beady eyes filled with his firelight. Hikoshu had seen ostrich-horses before but never so close up, and the looks they gave him were eerie in the dark.

"Come on." Yan-lin took his free hand again, pulling him further into the stables, while underfoot, dirt mixed with coarse grain crackled with their steps. They didn't walk far from the entrance—seventeen stalls, perhaps, though all of them looked about the same to him. Yan-lin somehow saw a difference, and urged him to a stop in front of one in particular. Dropping his fingers, she approached an ostrich-horse that cocked its head quizzically, its dark brown feathers ruffling.

"Ben-pao," she said affectionately, reaching up to grasp its head. It leaned forward obediently over the wooden stall door and made a strange gurgling sound that was echoed by a hundred other unseen beasts. "He's a good horstrich. Fast, and strong enough to carry two."

"We're not taking two ostrich-horses?" Hikoshu asked, though he would've rather they not take any at all.

"Unless you've learned how to ride one, I think it's best if we don't." She mimicked the gurgling noise as she rubbed under its beak. Hikoshu watched them both with little amusement, wondering if they really were communicating. Finally, he felt compelled to interrupt.

"So what do we need to do? Just saddle it and go—" He abruptly forgot what he was saying when he heard the stable door click open. It was a faint sound, barely on the edge of recognition, but he could see the hint of moonlight along the jamb as someone entered, far away from them. Immediately, he let his flame go out.

"Quick, come on," Yan-lin whispered again, and once more, she yanked on his hand to pull him further into the stable, their footsteps cracking against the scattered corn. The person who entered was now lighting a lantern, and Hikoshu watched him closely over his shoulder as they hurried. The distance was too great to make out the man's face, or to extinguish his lantern with bending. Hikoshu didn't even know if the stranger posed any threat; all he knew was that this person, whoever he was, must have seen his flame before he put it out.

He smashed into Yan-lin when she came to a stop, and he thought for a moment they'd reached the other end of the stable. But suddenly, she shoved him sideways, right into what was likely an open stall. He stumbled and swallowed a grunt as he hit the ground, cushioned by a thick pile of hay. Above him, the light of the stranger's lantern dimmed behind the walls of the stone compartment, and in front of him, Yan-lin fumbled for his knees as she hid inside the stall as well.

"Are you all right?" she whispered, releasing him.

Hikoshu ignored the question. "He saw my fire. He knows we're in here."

"I'm sure," she said, loud enough to let a plaintive note enter her voice, and glanced over the edge of the stall. "He's a stableman. I think I know him."

"If he comes close enough, I can bend his lantern out. We might be able to sneak past."

"We still need a horstrich if we have any hope of leaving the city."

"That might not be an option at this point. I'm not going to hurt him, Yan-lin." Though he whispered, Hikoshu knew he sounded accusatory. Still, he couldn't shake the thought of that earthbender of earlier, Yan-lin's dagger buried in his back.

"Be quiet," she answered swiftly, and he fell silent, listening to her heavy breaths as the stable slowly brightened, the light of the approaching lantern creeping past the stall. Soon, he could see her silhouette in front of him. She was pulling what looked to be long, thick pins out of her headdress, and she dropped them to the dirt with dull thuds. A moment later, the headdress followed them, hitting the ground loudly as she shook her hair loose from its bun, then struggled with something on her shoulders.

"Who's in here?" a strange voice shouted just a little too nervously, and just a little too close for Hikoshu's own comfort. But his concern was abruptly wiped from his mind as Yan-lin kissed him.

Hikoshu's first instinct was to push away, and she grabbed his wrists as if she expected it, straddling his waist to keep him down. Despite his muffled protest, she kept her lips pressed firmly to his, and he had no choice but to relent. As his resistance weakened, Yan-lin's kiss became less harsh and more heated. Impassioned, deep and hurried, like she intended to enjoy as much of him as she could before they were discovered. His thoughts scattered and disorganized, Hikoshu tried to cling to the urgency of the situation while his body responded involuntarily to her touch, his hands unconsciously following her silent instruction to grasp her hips.

Almost as quickly as she started, she yanked away, leaving him in a lurch of incomprehension, and dazed, Hikoshu needed a moment to realize they'd been seen. Yan-lin turned to face the stableman, whose lantern light flooded the stall, and she effectively blocked him from view with her body.

"Bojan," she gasped, brushing at her hair and straightening the gown she had apparently tugged down her shoulders. "It's…it's not what you think."

"What are you doing, Mistress Yan-lin?" Hikoshu still couldn't see the man's face, as Yan-lin was particularly good at keeping her body between them. But Bojan's voice certainly sounded suspicious, possibly even a little chastising. "Does your father know you're out here?"

"No," she said quickly, her own voice filling with guilt. "Of course not. Bojan, you can't tell him." She then gave a low, tortured moan, pushing herself off of Hikoshu to stand before the groom. "Please. He'll be so mad if-if he knew. Please, Bojan."

Forgotten now, Hikoshu straightened from the hay, though he made no attempt to interrupt. He could only hope Yan-lin knew what she was doing; he was still too floored by the stolen kiss to form any coherent plan. Above him, their conversation had fallen to yet another quiet murmur, no longer involving him. Yan-lin had somehow urged Bojan out of the stall, and now they stood in the center of the stable as they spoke. Bojan, illuminated by his lantern, had the scruffy appearance of a boy who lived far too close to his work. Not much younger than Yan-lin, he wore robes dirtied by grain dust and wielded a leather crop as if it were a weapon. This had fallen limply to his side, unnoticed, as his eyes remained focused on her. Occasionally his gaze would slip downward when she touched his arm, and he had moved the lantern out of the way so that she could close the distance between them. Whatever she was whispering, it held his rapt attention, and she rested her hand on his chest to stress the gravity of her words. Eventually, she managed to make her point, because he nodded, threw a blind look at Hikoshu, and started back toward the door.

Yan-lin shouted a breathy "thank you" after him, which he didn't acknowledge, then returned to the stall to sit in Hikoshu's lap once more. "What happ—" he began, but she covered his mouth with one hand and pressed him back into the hay, her expression unreadable in the dark.

This time, though, she brought her lips to his ear and whispered, "Wait until you hear the door." She didn't kiss him again, thankfully, as he tried hard to listen for a sound that had been almost too faint to hear the first time. Fortunately, Bojan didn't care so much for stealth now, and the door clicked shut several painfully awkward moments later. Now at liberty to speak, Hikoshu pushed her off of him by the hip and got to his feet.

"So your plan was to make us even _more_ conspicuous?" He lit a fire, throwing everything into contrast. Yan-lin was still seated, staring up at him with wide eyes, disheveled hair, and lips smeared in red. Such an appearance should have made for a comically pathetic scene, but on her, it somehow looked half-tamed and surprisingly enticing. It then dawned on Hikoshu that she must have been going for such an effect—that the firelight must have caught her eyes the same way for Bojan's lantern, and that prior to the groom's arrival, she must have mussed her hair and pulled down the neckline of her gown to emphasize her cleavage. At least, he was pretty sure she had. He certainly didn't remember noticing before now.

"Two people in a stable is suspicious. Two people enjoying each other in one isn't." She began to search the hay for the remnants of her headdress. "Especially since Bojan knows how strict my father is on such things."

"Your private affairs are public knowledge?"

Yan-lin didn't look at him as she answered. "What better way to make sure I don't slip up?" Having found the last pin, she finally rose and met his gaze. "Bojan would have told my father immediately if I'd been in this stable for no good reason."

"What's stopping him now?" It was hard to hold her gaze, as he could barely connect those large brown eyes to the person who'd been kissing him so fervently not long before.

"I convinced him to meet me in his quarters after I'm done with you. I admit I may not be quite as persuasive as my father's wrath, but it might work. Regardless, we don't have a lot of time."

"Wait, what?" Hikoshu asked, startled, as she leaned into a neighboring stall to scan its contents. It was empty, and she lost interest after a perfunctory look. "You're meeting him?"

"Relax, I just told him I would. To get him out of the way while we take a horstrich."

"So you promised him you'd…?" He wasn't really sure if he should finish the statement, so he trailed off uncomfortably. Yan-lin turned to him with a flat expression.

"Don't act offended. As you told me, you didn't want to hurt him, and as I told you, we're going to need a horstrich." She slipped past him, away from the stall. "And it worked, didn't it?"

"Yes, but…"

"Hikoshu, they're just words. It's not like I was straddling him in an empty horstrich stall." She threw a glance over her shoulder meaningfully before she leaned over another stone partition. "If you haven't noticed, I'm not strong. I'm not a bender. I can't intimidate people into helping me, and sometimes it's just not that easy to argue them into helping me, either." Her voice was muted behind the wall. A moment later, she straightened and set a bucket on the ground, water sloshing over its side. "My father always said that, as a woman, I would not be valued except for what I can promise men. And he taught me how to exploit it."

"That was your father's doing?" Hikoshu couldn't keep the revulsion out of his voice. Yan-lin gave a soft hmph as she sat on her heels and pulled the bucket between her knees so that she could peer into the water.

"My father's smart. If men can be so easily manipulated by a coy glance and a giggle, then not to use that skill because it doesn't do _honor_ to my _sex_ would make me a fool." Carefully, she wiped at her lips, trying to fix the make-up with the inside of her wide sleeve.

Hikoshu felt his mouth go dry as he watched her work; despite the fact the ploy had been for his benefit, he still felt used. "Have you ever tried that on me?"

Yan-lin glanced up at him, arching both delicately painted eyebrows. "Have you ever wanted me to?" Hikoshu decided in that moment that he didn't really want to know, and let her go back to her meticulous grooming. "Don't judge me for doing what I need. I wasn't born with the power to make kings and rulers listen to my command."

Hikoshu decided also not to point out that he _was_ born with that power, and yet here he was, trying to sneak out of Omashu and relying on her in order to do it. So he simply stood there as she used the water to fix her hair, which she did quite efficiently given the complexity of the headdress. A moment later, she straightened, looking a little less elegant than she had earlier that evening but far more composed than she had in the stall.

"We have another gate to get through, and then we'll be in the Third District," she explained, grasping his elbow. Then, without warning, she scrubbed at his mouth with the inside hem of her sleeve. Hikoshu started to pull away, but she followed him. "After that, there'll be gates, but no one will care that we're going out. They only watch for people going in."

"Fine," he said past the fabric, unable to push her back as she still held his arm and his other hand held his flame. "Could you stop?"

"Oh, were you wanting to wear my lip rouge?" She gave him a teasing smirk and stepped around him. "Let's get the tack, saddle the horstrich, and leave before Bojan becomes impatient."

"And what about supplies?" He turned after her, feeling that somehow he'd just lost a battle of wits. Somehow.

"Don't worry, I'll handle that. Once we're out in the city."

**xxXxxxXxxXxxxXxx**

The last obstacle was the northern gate, also apparently known as the Autumn Gate. And when they approached it, Hikoshu had to suppress a wave of anxiety. The sandstone walls loomed tall, and the soldiers who manned the guard towers responded promptly to their appearance on the gravel path. Issuing from the two small, green-tiled guardhouses, they convened at the top of the solid rock wall, their faces hidden by both the night and their salakots. Yan-lin, who sat above him on the ostrich-horse's back, did not share his discomfort, the only recognizable expression under her make-up one of curiosity. But as they neared, even that disappeared, and she beamed up pleasantly at the guards' demands for them to stop.

"Is it Ghaon up there?" she called, pulling tight on the ostrich-horse's reins. Obediently, Hikoshu stopped, too, and kept his head low.

"No, Ghaon's with the party tonight," one guard said, and his voice echoed jarringly through the narrow courtyard. "Is that you, Mistress Yan-lin?"

"Of course. Who else uses this gate?" There was a teasing quality to her tone, spurring Hikoshu to sneak a glance. The two guards had both leaned with folded arms against the balustrade, where they admired with apparent good humor Yan-lin's moonlit face. "They have you working tonight, Tono?"

"Well, it's hardly work when no one comes by but you. In fact, you just interrupted Piang taking me for all I have. That right, Piang?"

"He would've lost it anyway, Mistress," Piang said, and just as with the previous guards, Hikoshu had to staunch a wave of irritation and a growing sense of urgency; there simply wasn't time for this. Yan-lin must have sensed his impatience.

"You boys wouldn't mind me accompanying my friend the back way to the Third District? He's had a little too much to drink, and his wife won't let him walk out with her." That was a terrible excuse. But as a result, Hikoshu tried to remember how an intoxicated man acted. Unfortunately, alcohol excess had never been a common aspect of his life.

"You know we would, Mistress, but your father's explicitly told us not to let you run around anymore."

"That figures," she muttered so lowly, Hikoshu wondered if even he was supposed to hear it. Then, speaking louder, she continued, "How much running around can I do with a scholar too drunk to stay on a horstrich?" That drew a laugh, and he frowned in vague offense. "Let me out for an hour, and my father won't even know about it."

"Will you finally invite my son to tea?" As he asked the question, Tono straightened.

"Just as soon as Her Majesty approves. But if he's as handsome as his father is, I'm sure she will." Again, more laughs, and Piang said something that Hikoshu only partly caught. Then they faced each other and bent low at the knees, one fist pressed against the other. When they rose and pulled their fists back, the wall slid open, not very wide, but wide enough for them to pass through. Yan-lin kicked the ostrich-horse into motion, and Hikoshu clung to the edge of the saddle, trying to appear as unsteady as he possibly could. The guards must have fallen for it, though, because they escaped without issue, other than Tono's strict warning that she be back in an hour.

"Will they get in trouble for this?" Hikoshu whispered after they'd walked well beyond the gate.

Yan-lin's face was hard, the humor completely gone. "It's what I had to do. I'll make it up to them." Hikoshu realized with some disappointment that there were a lot of people she was going to have to make it up to.

The street around them was empty, and as they walked, Hikoshu held tight to the ostrich-horse's bridle and studied the buildings to either side. The moon reflected off their cream-colored walls and disappeared against the green-tiled roofs, only emphasizing the smoothed, unadorned facades of each structure, marred by the occasional window or door. The buildings themselves were connected—no alleys ran between them, and no colonnades marked the borders of each unit. Sometimes, the height of the building would change, and frequently, he caught glimpses of other architecture on the skyline. But otherwise, it was as if two walls ran on either side of the street.

As Yan-lin had said, the next set of guards didn't stop them, merely opening the wooden gates in the earthen wall. The section beyond was the exact same as the section before, and Hikoshu's interest waned as the ostrich-horse's clawed feet clicked loudly on the brick road. Instead, he gritted his teeth to keep them from chattering against the cold, and turned his thoughts to the evening. How quickly they had run, with little time for him to consider where they were running to. Perhaps if he had dwelt on it, he would've realized that they had no supplies, no direction, and no idea how to get out of the city. It was a fool's plan that had only seemed reasonable in light of the fact that someone inside the palace was trying to kill him.

"You can ride with me, you know." Yan-lin's words broke through his idle thoughts, and he glanced up to see her white-painted face gazing down at him, wisps of fog occasionally escaping her lips. "You don't have to walk."

"As long as we're going downhill, it's fine." Honestly, Hikoshu had never gotten along with pack-animals. He'd always figured it was karma for taunting komodo-rhinos when he was younger. Whatever it was, he just didn't like riding them. Besides, walking downhill was easy—almost cathartic. And though the road continuously switched back on itself in a zigzag fashion, it hadn't tired him out yet.

"If you were an earthbender, we could've taken the delivery chutes," Yan-lin continued with some humor. Hikoshu looked into the sky almost automatically. Coursing above them like dark, stone ribbons, the slides led to every part of Omashu. Yet even if he could earthbend, he would _never_ ride those things. They looked like an invitation to a broken spine.

"Maybe in a few years," he said unenthusiastically, and they lapsed back into silence.

The next gates weren't even closed, and the guards nodded under their wide hats as they crossed into the new section. Above him, Yan-lin gave a short wave and shivered visibly in the saddle, leading him to wonder how long she'd been hiding how cold she was. As a firebender, Hikoshu had always had a fairly poor tolerance for winter, but having survived worse in the South Pole meant that he could survive this without complaint now. Yan-lin, however, didn't have such a resistance to the numbing wind, and with the watchful obscurity of night, he couldn't firebend to help her. So he made no offer, simply ignoring the way her small frame quaked from time to time.

In this section, there were now separations in the buildings, narrow alleys leading off somewhere between them. Infrequently, the doors would also have green lanterns, which swung from hooks and threw light on the pavement. He thought he could hear the sounds of laughter beyond, though the apparent celebration never spilled onto the street. In addition, there were now people who walked past: couples holding hands, or men who talked in hushed murmurs as they threw glances at their ostrich-horse. Hikoshu didn't like the feeling they gave him, to the point that he mentioned it to Yan-lin.

"It's the Sixth District," she explained, obviously unconcerned. "The city watch doesn't patrol these streets as much, so the drunks are a little braver. Don't worry, they won't risk horstrich-thieving so early in the night." Did it mean they'd try it at another time? He would've asked, but they came onto an intersection just then, the road diverging into two separate streets. Yan-lin pulled the ostrich-horse onto the right branch, and he followed silently.

Now that he knew this was a separate district—and from what he gleaned about the nature of districts in Omashu—Hikoshu noticed finer details about his surroundings. The buildings, separate from each other, didn't look to be in quite as good condition as the other two districts. While the majority was sturdy, there was an occasional building that was missing a chunk of stone, and others were covered in plaster to hide their own faults. Even the road had one or two holes where a loose brick had never been replaced.

The next district was in no better shape. But it was a lot livelier. A _lot_ livelier, in fact, as the parties that were hidden behind walls in the Sixth District now echoed in the streets. The buildings were different, too. Some were multi-storied monsters with dozens of windows, and others were solid walls with just a narrow entrance. Others had no openings, and Yan-lin explained that they were market buildings that could be earthbended into stalls in the morning.

Others still weren't buildings at all, but arcades that obscured courtyards behind them, which in turn let onto brightly-lit houses. The arcades were populated with various people, from soldiers to drunks to regular men, but mostly, they were women. Women who looked a lot like Yan-lin, in fact, with heavy white make-up and gaudy colored silks. As they walked past, those women would call out taunts and invitations, some of which made Hikoshu look away in embarrassment.

"Hey, your lady friend's riding the wrong beast!"

"If she works up your appetite, you can always come back here for dessert."

Actually, he _was_ hungry. Dinner had been lost somewhere between the attack and the stables. Studiously ignoring some woman dressed in bright orange, he gave a tug on Yan-lin's robes. "Mind telling me where we're headed?"

"Just down the street." She was completely calm, as if she didn't hear any of the jeers directed at her. "We're in the Eighth District now." She apparently thought that should mean something to him, and it obviously didn't. But two guards were walking by, and his apprehension kicked in. Quietly, he ducked his head, and they passed on without a word.

In addition to the people who trickled along the street, there were _colors_. More colors than he'd seen in a week at the palace. The green lanterns were now red, white, yellow, and every color seemed to have a different meaning for whatever door they hung by. From time to time, he could read the signs under them, and they proclaimed things like _Autumn Moon Tea House_ or _White Thornberry Wine and Restaurant_. Others simply said _Merchant Noodle Shop_. The fanciness of the title didn't seem to dictate the quality of the store, some hidden by walls, some merely a bamboo curtain in a doorway.

Yan-lin pulled the ostrich-horse to a stop in front of a walled restaurant, its red-lit sign reading _Two Lovers Inn_. Hikoshu didn't trust that name, nor the sounds of women's delighted shrieks ringing out from behind the wide door. Unfortunately, he couldn't see into the courtyard, a privacy barrier protecting its occupants from those on the street.

"Maybe we should try somewhere else," he said hesitantly, but Yan-lin ignored him as she dismounted and took the ostrich-horse's reins. With a clipped command, she pulled the ostrich-horse through that wide door and around the artful privacy wall that stood just inside of it. Unable to argue with silence, Hikoshu sighed and followed.

The privacy wall was decorated with a colorful mosaic of two mountains, which seemed relatively tame. So he felt a little reassured as he rounded the corner of the wall and stepped into the courtyard. It wasn't as bad as he'd imagined from the outside, either, though the people who milled around the rather barren, rocky courtyard were mostly couples. Across from the gate was a two-story building, its swooping eaves decorated with spherical red lanterns and its windows glowing gold. Men loitered on its veranda, some seated at small tables over board games and others laughing loudly as they flirted with white-faced women. Music occasionally floated from the open door, and Hikoshu had to marvel at how they managed to keep the place warm when it was so exposed to the cold weather.

Yan-lin had left him in the meantime, and he slowly realized that she'd headed for another building to his right. The squat, one-story building had missed his attention at first, as he had assumed it was just part of the courtyard wall. Now, he saw Yan-lin disappear behind it with the ostrich-horse. When she reappeared a short time later, the ostrich-horse was gone.

"This restaurant has stables," she said as she approached him, wiping her hands against her wrinkled robes. "Let's get something to eat." It was the most appealing suggestion Hikoshu had heard all night, and he let her lead him across the courtyard and into the brightly lit building.

The inside of the inn was just as vibrant as the outside. Its center floor was littered with wooden tables that were all occupied, filled with men ranging from farmers to guards. Across from them, on the opposite wall, was a low-set stage which featured a woman, her artfully embroidered, green-and-orange silks enveloping her chair as she strummed a zither. He couldn't see much of her face, as it was hidden below a headdress of green feathers, and she didn't seem to notice her audience.

Yan-lin took him to the right, toward a stone counter that stretched the length of the room. Men sat at this, as well, most of them bent over dishes as they ate silently. Managing to find an empty spot on the bench away from everyone else, she gestured for him to have a seat.

"We're not planning to stay here, are we?" he asked in a whisper as she slid onto the bench beside him. The solemn zither music, mingled with the raucous laughter of weary men, almost drowned out his words.

"I'm just looking for someone." By the way she peered over the counter, he assumed that 'someone' had to be on the other side of it.

Someone finally did appear, as if summoned, from one of the two bead-curtained doors. The man looked like he had another life as a ship handler in a port city, the knotted muscles in his neck and arms indicative of a person who carried too-heavy cargo onto jerking gangplanks. His gray linen robes, however, bore food stains, and his black hair had a greasy sheen, as if he'd been bent over cooking oil all day. Wiping his hands against his stomach, he approached them with a jovial smile and a faint, wafting odor of boiled garlic.

"What can I get you this evening?" He directed the question to Hikoshu, who immediately looked to Yan-lin. She was obliging, raising her hand to grab the man's attention.

"I didn't see Diem in the stables. Is he here tonight?" The man's friendly smile melted into a frown as he glanced toward her.

"Yeah, a city watchman on Mercantile Street broke his cinch. Diem's over there fixing it. Should be back soon." He eyed her suspiciously, as if uncertain why someone like her would be asking about such a person. "Can I get you and your friend here something while you wait?"

"A bowl of egg noodles, and some ginger-plum sauce." Despite his obvious mistrust, Yan-lin smiled warmly. "Or whatever you have in the kitchen."

"Noodles will be four coppers." That seemed a little steep, but Yan-lin's smile didn't falter.

"Diem will cover it. Just use his tab." The man didn't look too trustful of that, either, but he nodded and returned to the kitchen.

"Who's this Diem?" Hikoshu said as soon as he was gone, and Yan-lin looked to him, her smile fading back into typical pragmatism.

"An old friend of mine. Someone who'll be able to help you." She then shifted so she could lean against the counter and watch the performer, who was now singing woefully along to her instrument.

Hikoshu in turn watched Yan-lin as he battled with confusion. For some reason, he had just assumed she would be the one to help him to the desert—that she would have all of the answers for dealing with the sandbenders. "You're not coming with me, are you?" Yan-lin looked at him askance, then gave a soft sigh, metal bangles on her crescent headdress shaking as she lowered her head to study the bench below them.

"Hikoshu, I've caused a lot of problems tonight. And I'm just going to cause more problems the longer I stay." Then, quietly, she said, "I'm sorry." Hikoshu had never trusted Yan-lin, and he doubted he ever could trust anyone who lied as easily as she. But the fact that she was willing to face the consequences of her actions earned his respect, and he found himself regretting that he'd asked her to do so much for him while having so little faith in her.

She must've felt his stare, for she glanced at him out of the corner of her lined eyes, her mouth pursing. "I'll be fine. If I get back before morning, they may not even know I was gone."

"Yan-lin—" Hikoshu was interrupted by the approach of a stranger—a man dressed like a commoner, his green robes just a little too short for his lithe body, as if he'd own them for too many years. Similarly, worn patches stretched over his elbows as he took an empty seat beside Yan-lin and smiled a smile of unspoken desires, loose hair hiding eyes that probably hinted at the same. The look of him gave Hikoshu an unpleasant feeling.

"I've never seen a sparrokeet like you around here," the man said with his lopsided grin. It pulled a long scar tight across his chin, deforming his smile. Though the expression was amiable, it never touched his eyes, and as the man leaned into the counter in a mirror of Yan-lin's laid-back posture, Hikoshu had a sense he was hardly relaxed.

"I'm occupied." Yan-lin's voice was flat as she straightened, and she twisted away from him to face Hikoshu. He could see now how unhappy she was, her shoulders taut and squared, her lips drawn in a pert frown.

The man wasn't ruffled by the cold reception, as he propped his elbow on the counter and cupped his chin in his palm. In fact, he almost seemed to be enjoying it. "I'll pay double whatever he's paying." The comment didn't make much sense to Hikoshu at first, though the man's eyes and that unattractive smile eventually gave context to his words.

Yan-lin was quicker, though, and she craned her head back toward the stranger. "If you want my services, you'll have to talk to my madam. She handles my clients."

"And who would that be?" he asked just as she looked away, and irritation flashed across her face.

"Madam Xu on Washing Street. Ask for Tian-li."

"See, now, that's funny." But the man's expression changed to one that wasn't so funny, his grin twisting into an angry glower as he pushed off the counter. "Because Xu moved to Sixth District six months ago." Still facing Hikoshu, Yan-lin's eyes widened, and though he couldn't see her skin under the white paint, he knew she was blanching. "Want to try another name?"

Yan-lin spun back toward him as he stood. "Listen, I'm not taking clients."

"Not anymore. Free-flying sparrokeets don't have any work here." The man had suddenly turned threatening, one hand folding into a fist. "So I suggest you move on, before I ruin your commodity."

"Hey." Hikoshu couldn't stay quiet any longer, and the man glanced up as he got to his feet. "Leave the girl alone." He made full use of his imposing height, adding a silent threat to his voice. But just as quickly, Yan-lin stood, too, pressing her palms into his chest to restrain him.

"This has nothing to do with you, friend," the man growled and shifted his glare to Hikoshu. "Just business between me and the sparrokeet."

"I think your business is done for the night," he answered over Yan-lin's soft pleas for him to be quiet. "She's not bothering you."

The man gave an incredulous laugh at that, though it didn't change the dangerous air about him. "Look, I don't think you want to get involved." No. He didn't. Especially since he didn't want any fights that would call attention to him or Yan-lin. But he wasn't going to let the man hurt her, either, and if necessary, he would just have to figure out how to escape the city watch later.

"Hikoshu, don't do this," Yan-lin was whispering, and he finally looked down at her. Her eyes were strained, large and terrified. But for some reason, they seemed more terrified of what he was going to do, rather than what the other man had planned. "It'll be fine. Let me handle it." It was enough to staunch the irritation that the man had evoked in him.

Up until he spoke again. "If you're worried about your money, I'll be confiscating this sparrokeet's purse momentarily. You're free to reinvest with our girls, though." Casually, the man grasped Yan-lin's shoulder. "I'll even give you half off the eve—"

Without thinking, Hikoshu snatched his hand away from her and twisted his middle finger until it bordered on the point of breaking, a tendon popping sickeningly in some joint. The stranger gave a shuddering gasp of pain, the color draining from his face as he twisted with his hand, and Yan-lin seized Hikoshu's elbow in an attempt to break his hold. Uninterested in hurting him, Hikoshu complied with her silent demand, but he didn't take his eyes from the man. "I suggest you keep your hands—and your implications—to yourself. I told you, your business is done here."

As he nursed his hand, the stranger's face went from a ghastly shade of green to an even more hideous shade of red. "I guess you just became my business, too."

The next series of events happened so quickly, Hikoshu barely registered them before they ended. The cook had appeared, leaning over the counter as he shouted for them to go outside, just as Yan-lin tried to push him backwards. But his new opponent stepped forward threateningly and Hikoshu yanked her aside as he moved into an instinctive firebending stance, energy flowing to the tips of his fingers.

They were quickly interrupted by a second stranger, lankier than the first, who stepped between them and set his back to Hikoshu. "Whoa, Jinjo, hold off for a moment."

Before he could determine the identity of their mediator, Hikoshu was dragged off by the arm, out of the room that had grown quiet during their altercation and onto the veranda. When Yan-lin had yanked him into the courtyard, she rounded on him angrily, her fists squeezed into tiny balls.

"_Why_ do you never listen to me?" Her voice was a hiss, low enough to avoid the ears of those who watched nearby, but sharp enough for him to hear the accusation. "Just once, I wish you would stop picking fights."

"Me?" Hikoshu needed a moment to stutter out an answer, so shocked was he by her reaction. "He was threatening you. I was just trying to help!"

"No, you were trying to protect me. But you don't understand I can handle myself."

His shock faded, and now an almost unconscious anger welled up in its place. "Oh, I understand that. I've been letting you handle both of us the entire night. Frankly, though, I'm getting tired of the way you 'handle' things."

Her eyes narrowed in offense, and he thought he could detect hurt in the thin line of her mouth. "What does that mean?" Hikoshu started to tell her—started to elaborate on all of the deceptions she'd played that night, on all of the innocent people she'd manipulated, as if they were merely props she could move at will. With the sudden wave of frustration Yan-lin had incited in him, she had also unearthed feelings he'd been burying all night. Memories of lies she had told him in the past, sparked by lies she so effortlessly conjured now. As if manipulation were the only skill she had.

But even as the old hurt resurfaced, Hikoshu knew it was unjustified. No, he didn't approve of her techniques; he'd been the victim of them to a degree that most people couldn't fathom or match. Yet what she did now, she did for him, and because he had asked. Yan-lin was the only reason he was standing here, ready to berate her for lying to save him. His sudden guilt combined with the way she stared at him—as if anticipating his disapproval—were enough to make him regret his words, and he racked his mind for a way to take them back. All the while, Yan-lin waited quietly for his explanation, her headdress catching the light of the crimson lamps.

They were still locked on the edge of that emotional precipice when the gentleman who had interrupted the fight stepped out on the veranda, a hand to his neck. "Well, that cost me a good strap of leather, but I think Jie's cooled down a bit now." His voice held a strange accent, as if he didn't quite know what syllables to emphasize, and he softened certain words until they were almost indistinguishable from the next. And despite the rather typical Omashu clothing he wore, he appeared foreign, too—dark and exotic, moving as if he'd spent all of his life on a boat.

Yan-lin's glare shifted away from Hikoshu, and suddenly, she was smiling once more, as brilliant as sunlight. "Diem, thank you," she breathed. The man grinned as she met him at the foot of the steps and wrapped her arms around his thin waist.

"Come off it. I'm filthy, and you're going to ruin your pretty silks." He patted the back of her head, grimacing as his fingers caught on her headdress, and pulled away. "What sand-blasted thing is this, anyway? You look like a moon queen."

"It's heavy, too," she answered dryly, though she still beamed as she tugged him by the hand into the courtyard. "What did you tell him?"

"Oh, just that you were my girl from Sixth District." His response brought an inordinately loud laugh from Yan-lin, which made Diem grin again. "He had a hard time buying it, too. But tell you the truth, he gave me more trouble over your boyfriend here."

Suddenly, Hikoshu was back in the conversation as Diem pulled an arm around Yan-lin's shoulder and turned them both to face him. The other man was indeed filthy—his khaki-colored robes were covered in large swaths of dirt and torn so badly at the hems that only the leather belt around his waist somehow kept everything together. He hadn't even noticed, apparently, that one sleeve was rolled up to the elbow while the other, now around Yan-lin, was loose and falling apart at his wrist. It was quite a sight, the tall, lanky, out-of-sorts man next to the petite, pristine, and courtly girl. Yet they were the ones staring at him like he was a fish with legs.

"Diem, this is my friend Hikoshu," Yan-lin said with a smile that somehow made him forget about their fight moments before. Her happiness was almost infectious at that point. "He doesn't have a lot of tact." There went the happy feeling.

"Who does?" Diem gave Yan-lin a gentle squeeze. "Except for you, mud pie." She practically glowed at the compliment. "Come on, Huan's given me time off to 'escort' you back to the Sixth. I'll get you both some tea."


	24. Ch 23: The Leatherworker's Shop

**Chapter 23 - The Leatherworker's Shop**

* * *

Diem's home was in a back alley not too far from the Two Lovers Inn. In a city where space was always a commodity, the houses had been squeezed together as individual units in much larger buildings, and those buildings in turn were stacked against each other so closely that only narrow streets provided access to the homes. The alley that Diem led them through was hardly wide enough to spread one's arms comfortably, and the looming eaves above them would have never allowed the sun to penetrate their protective canopy. As a result, puddles of refuse water that couldn't properly dry produced odors which had seeped into the stonework, fouling the air and adding to the oppressive quality of the tight space. The inhabitants were only fortunate that winter had muted the squalor, and the remnant waste was now starting to freeze.

"The smell's not completely bad," Diem joked as he mounted a set of dilapidated steps, his voice echoing on the building next to them. "After all, it keeps the elephant-rats away." He then pushed open the wood door, half-rotting, and invited them inside.

The room they entered was black, but then Diem stepped in behind them and uncovered on a shelf next to the door some of the ubiquitous glowing Earth rocks. Immediately, the interior was doused with a soft green light that increased in intensity as he revealed more hidden rocks. The walls of the tiny room were covered in shelves, filled with a random assortment of leather goods, from shoes to saddles to bridles and aprons, as well as a hundred other objects made from leather that Hikoshu couldn't identify. Below those shelves were three or four work tables, which took up most of the remaining wall space and even the center of the room to some degree. Tools such as awls, hammers, and knives, as well as shreds of leather, littered their surfaces. In addition, a heady and unsavory smell of tanned hide and scraped leather permeated the work area, making him wonder if anyone could really live there.

"I'd clean, but I don't know where my broom went," Diem again quipped. Now within the aura of green light, his features were easier to distinguish. Long-limbed and thin, he moved as if his body met in sections, each part of him shifting individually but together in a way that suggested an eel-hound easing from beach to water. His eyes, accentuated by the light, were the color of ocean-pears, and his skin far duskier than any Omashu citizen's. A fine, brown beard encircled much fuller lips which seemed constantly on the brink of a grin, reminding Hikoshu of Natquik and happier memories. His clothes though were ill-fitting and, much as Hikoshu had surmised before, appeared on the verge of disintegrating around him. In contrast, his hair was immaculate, pulled back into three miniature topknots high on his head. Oblivious to Hikoshu's study, Diem lifted an empty bucket off of a stool and gestured for Yan-lin to sit, which she did with a smile. Curiously, she picked up an awl to examine it.

"I thought you were still living in the stable," she said over the tool as she twisted it between her fingers.

"I saved up and rented me a place." Somehow he found a second work stool, which he offered to Hikoshu. Wary of the multitude of sharp implements setting out, Hikoshu examined it carefully before sitting. "Still working the stable at night, but once I set up shop, I plan to move everything over here."

"That's good to hear."

Diem nodded as he cleared the table beside them, organizing tools that scraped loudly against the wood. "So I'd say from the look of you, Hikoshu, that you're not from around the city. Foreign dignitary?"

"Of a sort," he answered vaguely, tugging on the queue that had replaced his beloved topknot. Diem didn't react to his evasiveness, but he didn't pursue the subject either.

"Imagine you would be, if Yan-lin's in your company." Diem threw her a grin as he abandoned the tools on a shelf and fished out a tea kettle from a shadowy corner, the sound of its metal lid rattling through the room. "But that doesn't tell me why you're down here with us peasants in the Eighth." He bent over a box-shaped projection on the floor and slid back another, larger metal lid, which revealed coals underneath. Immediately, the room was effused with a meager surge of heat.

"Can't I just want to visit an old friend?" Yan-lin sounded both humorous and teasing as she replaced the awl gently on the table.

Diem looked over his shoulder, waggling a tin cup at her on one finger. "You don't show up at a man's place of business after a year of silence and expect that story to hold a tent peg, do you? No. And don't you giggle at me. You're not that cute anymore."

"Diem's a friend of the family," Yan-lin said to Hikoshu as Diem snorted. "My father brought him to Omashu when he was young and gave him a job. Diem's lived here ever since."

"Thirteen years. Almost half of my life spent in Omashu." Now that the kettle was set to simmer amidst the coals of the brazier, Diem could face them properly, fixing his sleeve as he leaned against a workbench. "And I've only just found a rent cheap enough to afford. But that explains what _I'm_ doing here and nothing about you."

For once, to her credit, Yan-lin went straight to the point. "We need your help."

"Well, obviously. But unless you broke your shoe and the royal shoemaker's sick, I can't figure why."

A quiet settled on them as Yan-lin's streak of honesty ended, and Hikoshu could almost see the calculations behind her eyes—the best way to twist the situation so that Diem would have no choice but to help. Diem probably saw it, too, though he stood with folded arms as he waited patiently for the manipulation.

"I need to get to the Si Wong Desert," Hikoshu blurted. "And I need to get out of the city." Yan-lin hissed under her breath at his confession. Let her be angry, though; he simply didn't have the energy to keep up with more lies, or the desire to mislead yet another person. If Diem didn't want the task, he was free to refuse it. But at least he'd know what he was refusing.

Certainly he looked ready to refuse. The ever-present grin was gone from his mouth, and when he spoke, his voice was quiet. "That true, Yan-lin? You want me to take him to the desert?"

"It's not that simple, Diem." Yan-lin hesitated, shooting Hikoshu a dark look. "But…yes. He needs a guide."

Abruptly, the tea pot whistled, and he turned away from them. Out of his sight, Yan-lin now gave Hikoshu the full heat of her glare, gritting her teeth so hard that he could see the outline of her jaw in the rocklight. Hikoshu met her gaze mutely, unrepentant.

"This must be pretty important, for you to ask me to go back there," Diem said as he poured three cups. His words sent a ripple of recognition through Hikoshu. Suddenly, the accent, the looks, even the mannerisms made sense; Diem seemed foreign because he _was _foreign. Just as foreign as Sidhari, whose spirit had served as Hikoshu's deceased mentor for so many years—who had been a sandbender long before she was the previous Avatar. Diem was from the desert tribes.

"It's extremely important." Yan-lin took a breath, imbuing the pause with such weight that even Hikoshu felt himself taken in by the moment. "Diem, this is the Avatar."

"Yeah?"

Yan-lin clearly intended for that revelation to draw a reaction, and to be honest, Hikoshu usually met with a stronger response when he disclosed such a fact as well. But Diem seemed unimpressed as he handed a cup to Hikoshu and another to Yan-lin. Taking it with mild surprise, she stared up at him expectantly as he stared down at her expectantly. The awkward silence trailed after him as he went to retrieve his own cup.

"Didn't you hear me?" She sounded exasperated as she set the hot drink on the workbench.

"No, I heard you. He's the Avatar." Diem sipped at his tea casually, and there was yet another really long, uncomfortable silence.

"You don't believe me."

"Well, come on, Yan-lin. If you want something, it's pretty much guaranteed you're lying to get it." He wrinkled his brow and rolled his eyes thoughtfully toward the ceiling. "Though the Avatar's a little outlandish. But not nearly as bad as the spider-sloths." He shuddered at the memory.

"Diem, I'm not lying. He's the Avatar!"

"You had me checking my mattress for weeks. At the age of twenty. And I don't even know how a spider-sloth would fit in the straw."

"Hikoshu, would you show him you're the Avatar? Please?" She turned desperately to him, and for one brief moment of childish glee, Hikoshu considered not obliging. For the first time that evening, someone had refused to fall for her shams, and for the first time that evening, she was actually telling the truth. The irony was too much for him not to appreciate.

But none of that was going to help anyone. With a sigh, he lifted his drink in front of him and drew the tea out of his cup by one finger. The bending wasn't meant to impress—only to demonstrate, so he limited the display to something far less extravagant than the one he gave during the Snow-Pass Festival. Pulling the water into a long, snake-like form, he then twisted it until it spun and shimmered over his fingers. The surface caught the rocklight and fractured it, adding an almost ethereal quality to the writhing tendril, and the strained tea leaves at the bottom of the cup put off a rich aroma that seemed to add to the soothing image.

To his left, Diem gasped, but Hikoshu wasn't quite yet finished; allowing the tea-water to turn unaided, he closed his fingers around its center and lit the air on fire. A tiny burst of flame briefly filled the room with brilliant light, and then they were once again plunged into the dim glow of rocks and coals. All that remained of the tea was a wisp of steam.

"Yan-lin, you…you brought the Avatar here?" Diem's voice was breathless, and Hikoshu finally allowed his attention to shift back to the other man. He looked terrified, wearing the kind of expression that people typically wore when they realized the most powerful person in the world was in their home, playing silly games with their teacups. As if the universe had upended and the only way to correct it was for someone to tell them it was all an elaborate hoax.

"He has to get to the Si Wong Desert, Diem," Yan-lin repeated, apparently thinking he'd be more pliable this time. "You know I wouldn't have brought him to you if I didn't think you were the best person for the task."

"But the Avatar?" Diem was obviously at a loss, his eyes flitting between them anxiously as he gave all of his weight to the bench. For a moment, Hikoshu feared he might go to his knees.

"Could I get some more tea?" he said quickly as he held up his empty cup. Diem hardly looked in the right mind to do that, but the request distracted him from the effort of digesting the full implications of Yan-lin's request.

Unfortunately, Yan-lin didn't feel they had time for distractions. "Diem, it's important. I swear to you it is."

"Why?" Diem sat on a third stool weakly, not even looking to see what he might be sitting on. "What could the Avatar possibly want with the sandbenders?" Immediately, Yan-lin's eyes went to Hikoshu, and deciding he wouldn't have tea any time soon, he set his cup aside.

"The men of the Southern Water Tribe are dying." Hikoshu most certainly didn't trust Yan-lin. But she'd done enough for him that night that he owed her the truth, even if she might somehow use it against him or the Water Tribes later. So with gravity, he looked between the two as he spoke, resting his elbows on his knees. "Something's murdering them—something inhuman, and we don't know what or why. But I think the answer lies in the Desert Library."

As always, the mere mention of the horrors in the south invoked a quiet solicitude, as if Hikoshu had drawn the presence of the unknown spirit into their meeting. Diem was the first to break it. "No." His answer was blunt, both a response and a protest of disbelief. "I can't take you there."

"Diem, please…" Yan-lin began, but he cut her off with a shake of his head.

"Even if I could abandon my life for several weeks—even if I were able to convince my former tribe to help, the Great Library hasn't been under Wusun control for years. Decades. I don't even know who's controlling it now."

"It might be difficult," Hikoshu began, and Yan-lin shot him a look that was clearly uncertain. "Maybe impossible. But there are people I have to protect. And I will do it without your help. It'll just be a lot closer to 'difficult' and less close to 'impossible' if you do help." Diem again watched him without speaking, torn over the decision. Weighing his responsibility toward aiding people he didn't even know.

"Diem, he's the Avatar," Yan-lin said softly. "He needs your help. Please, look beyond your past. For him. For the people he's trying to save."

"Yan-lin, I…" he trailed off as he stared at her weakly, unable to find the words with which to turn down her request. He wasn't debating whether or not to take them to the desert. He was debating on the most diplomatic way to refuse them without offending the Avatar.

That, then, was Hikoshu's answer. "Can you at least get me out of Omashu?" If Diem didn't want to help him, he wasn't going to guilt the man into it. "That's all I need. And maybe you can tell me something that'll help me in the desert."

Yan-lin had obviously intended to fight, and she obviously thought Hikoshu had surrendered the matter too early, but she stayed silent as Diem deliberated on this new compromise, his eyes trained on them. After a long, agonizing hesitation, he nodded.

"I can get you to the nearest town. But I can't help you into the Si Wong." He turned back to the tea, saying lowly, "I'm sorry."

"It's fine." Suddenly, Yan-lin's manner was full of business, her tone shifting from pleading to pragmatic. "That's all we can ask." She pushed herself to her feet and wiped her hands on her silk robes, her eyes scanning the dark recesses of the room. Diem, however, didn't seem to completely believe her change of attitude, as he glanced toward her with a frown.

"Yan-lin, don't do that."

"I'm doing nothing, Diem. You said what you can do, and while it's not what I hoped for, it's good enough. I don't have time to argue you into helping. We have to get out of here before the Hour of the Rooster-Pig, so we need to get started now."

"Wait, you're running from something?" There was accusation in his stare as he watched her drag a pail of water from under the table next to him. "What would that be?"

"I have the Avatar in the middle of an Eighth District leather shop. Who else would I be running from?" She sat in the center of the room—the clearest space in the cluttered workshop—and set the bucket between her folded legs. Without looking up at him, she used the water and the edge of her sleeve to wipe away her make-up.

"You've got to be kidding me." Diem didn't suppress a groan as he once more took to his stool, propping his elbows against his knees so that he could cradle his head. "I'm helping the Avatar escape from your father? You know he beheads people for smaller offenses than that."

"Actually, he's trying to escape His Majesty." Yan-lin glanced up innocently, her face a bizarre combination of the normal and the exaggerated where her paint still clung. "I just don't think my father will take our side on the matter."

"Well, that makes it a lot better." Diem's tone was full of sarcasm, and he rubbed at his head tiredly. "So I'm committing a capital offense."

"But you're doing it for me." Over the edge of her paint-smeared sleeve, Yan-lin shot him a dazzling smile. The one he returned was grim and a little sickly. "Do you have any extra clothes? They'll never let us out of here wearing these."

"Afraid all I got is either too big or too small. Plus it wouldn't be fitting for a young girl like you to be wearing men's clothes." Just like Yan-lin, once he committed to something, Diem didn't seem to question his decision. "You could probably wear something of mine if you don't mind it being short, your…uh…" Hikoshu looked up, surprised, and found Diem watching him with a mixture of confusion and intimidation. He lifted a hand, as if reaching for the words, and stumbled over the title. "Your…Holiness."

"Trust me, he's hardly holy." Yan-lin was now removing her headdress, grimacing as she pulled loose the pins holding it on.

"I'm used to short robes," Hikoshu said, ignoring her quip. Diem didn't register the joke, either. He nodded absently as his eyes went back to Yan-lin.

"I can't get you out of here with a lot of supplies. You'll need to buy some in Gangzhou."

"That's fine. My father keeps money caches on the mountain." She set the gold headdress to the side and shook out her braids, the crimped brown hair falling in a cascade across her back. And for a moment, she resembled the same Yan-lin he'd known four years before. The reality of the situation—that he was once more entrusting the life of others as well as his own to the hands of a woman who had done her best to destroy him—struck Hikoshu hard enough to make him sway. But then Yan-lin plaited her hair in order to braid it, and just as quickly, the moment passed.

Diem watched her work with the same contemplative look that Hikoshu knew he also wore. Eventually, though, he shook himself from his thoughts and gave a sharp nod. "Alright, then. Let me go find you some clothes." There must have been a second room to the shop, as he got up and squeezed through the space between Yan-lin and Hikoshu. He pushed past a bench and then he disappeared into the dark, the sound of a door following him.

Taking advantage of the privacy, Hikoshu turned back to Yan-lin and leaned close so that he could speak lowly. "You have to come with me to the sand tribes."

"Hikoshu, I told you—"

"Listen. Without Diem, I don't stand much of a chance in the desert. I _have_ to have someone who knows what they're doing." She finally looked up at him, her mouth pursed and her eyes now a plain brown, devoid of their kohl lining.

"I thought you were tired of the way I 'handle' things."

Hikoshu winced as she threw his words back at him. "I know, and I'm sorry. You're right to be mad at me; I was angry and tired, and I said those things without thinking. But I also know that I've only made it this far because of you."

"You can't have it both ways, Hikoshu. You can't ask for my help then judge me for giving it, all in the same breath."

"I know, I know. I'm sorry. Lying has just never come easily to me—"

"Well, _you _said you didn't want to hurt anyone. But how you expected us to get out of the palace without deceiving somebody or breaking their neck, I can't imagine."

"I'm trying to apologize—"

"Of course, even that little ethical standard of yours was conveniently forgotten when you decided to defend my honor—"

"Yan-lin," Hikoshu hissed, glancing at the unseen door meaningfully. "I said I was sorry. Whatever I think about your methods, I can't argue the fact that they work, and there is far too much at stake for me to claim some moral high ground. So if I have to beg you to go to the desert with me, I will swallow my pride and do so. Just tell me what I need to do to convince you to stay."

She studied him, judging his sincerity, then gave a sigh. "It's not just that. If I stay with you, I'm going to cause you more trouble. Plain and simple."

"Trouble, I can afford. What I can't afford is failure."

They stared at each other—a silent battle of wills, as they pleaded their respective cases with their eyes. A sound in the other room interrupted their unspoken exchange, and she looked to the door with a tense frown. "Fine. I'll go. But we can't be at constant odds over some self-righteous integrity nonsense, with you undermining me every time we don't agree. Understood?"

"As long as I get to the library." In contrast to his words, Hikoshu had to wonder what he was compromising. Then again, did he have much choice in the matter? "I'll even keep my opinions to myself."

"I highly doubt that," Yan-lin muttered in response. She returned to her grooming as Diem re-entered the room, his arms full of worn cloth.

"They're probably not as comfortable as the high-quality silk robes you're used to, Avatar." He seemed more satisfied with that formal title, depositing one set of robes on the table next to Hikoshu. "But I hope you don't mind."

"Call me by my name; I was Hikoshu long before I was the Avatar. And I wore the same animal furs for two months straight. I'm sure these can't be nearly that bad." He gave Diem an encouraging smile. Diem did not look encouraged, or convinced.

"Well, you can buy something nicer when we get to Gangzhou, I'm sure." He dropped the last load next to Yan-lin. She also smiled up at him, though her expression seemed to work where Hikoshu's hadn't.

"Thank you, Diem."

"Thank me later, mud pie."

**o~o~O~o~o**

The last wall of Omashu was enormous—three times larger than any of the previous walls—and as they approached, Hikoshu gazed up in stunned awe. Since their departure from the inn, morning had slunk across the city, and the sky above them had turned a deep purple with the hints of dawn, casting a strange grayish-pink color to the stone. Far above them, on top of the faintly glowing wall, the tiny ant-like figures of men emerged from green-tiled watch towers that were only slightly bigger than the figures they held.

"I'm going to go have a talk with them," Diem said to Yan-lin as he grabbed a conical straw hat from the saddle horn and placed it on her head. With the funny shoes she wore to disguise her height—toothed-shoes, she had called them when she'd asked Diem to cobble a pair together—Yan-lin couldn't ride either ostrich-horse. So she now walked on the ground with both men, nearly as tall as Diem. "You two stay down here." Diem immediately made his way for the wall.

Hikoshu took the ostrich-horse's reins to keep the beast from following its owner. "What does he mean, 'down here?'" Yan-lin shot him a look from under her hat which he suspected he was lucky not to have caught. However, she didn't need to answer, as Diem quickly demonstrated his meaning; now at the wall, he did some strange gyrations Hikoshu recognized as bending moves, and the ground sprung up around him.

"He's an earthbender?" he asked, mouth agape, as a sizeable chunk of earth carrying Diem sped upward along the length of the wall, leaving only a trail of dust behind it.

"He's actually a sandbender." Currently preoccupied with tying the hat onto her head, Yan-lin was disinterested in the scene. "He's just learned to adapt it since leaving the desert."

"But…I thought he was a leatherworker."

The hat would have covered her eyes had she been shorter, but Yan-lin now watched him levelly, the brim framing brows darkened with hints of charcoal. "He's that, too. The Earth Kingdoms are a little more lenient when it comes to career choices for benders. They aren't really limited to 'hunter,' 'soldier,' or 'spiritual leader.'" She tilted her head back to regard the watch tower, though there was little to see at such a distance, Diem having already disembarked from his stone platform. "They can be anything from a king to a leatherworker."

Hikoshu had to admit, he was taken aback. In the Fire Nation, the only two choices open to benders were as Sages or soldiers. The airbenders were even more limited as they all became monks or nuns, regardless of their spiritual calling. And the Water Tribes, though less restricted, still relegated benders to roles where their skills would benefit the community. So the idea that benders could choose not to use their element—that they could pursue futures not even related to bending—was quite novel. More than that, the idea was tantalizing. A bender who never needed to bend. A person who wasn't defined by what he was supposed to be.

"How do I look?" Yan-lin suddenly said, interrupting his thoughts. She gave him a coquettish smile, catching his eyes from the corner of hers, and tugged lightly on the brim of her hat with both hands. The resulting motion caused the long sleeves of her coat to droop around her elbows.

"Lovely," Hikoshu answered absently, giving her a cursory glance. The response met with a sound of frustration.

"I mean, do I look like a man?"

Tucking his small epiphany away for later, Hikoshu finally assessed her. She'd used the extra bulk in her clothing to hide her feminine curves, but no amount of padding or charcoal could hide how very much like Yan-lin she looked. Her eyes gleamed and her smile broadened in a way that would never resemble a man, but they also carried a certain levity that Hikoshu wasn't sure he'd ever seen in her expression. Very much _un_like Yan-lin. Still, it wasn't what she'd been trying to achieve, so he shrugged in a noncommittal way. "Maybe a really tall boy?" Again, she groaned deep in her throat, frustrated. "Sorry. You're just too pretty to be a man."

Despite the obvious annoyance in the set of her jaw, Yan-lin was disturbed. Like she hadn't expected a compliment disguised as criticism. It was nice to surprise her on occasion, Hikoshu thought. Getting the upper-hand on Yan-lin happened far too infrequently.

Her unsettled expression faded as she turned back to the wall. "Something's wrong." Hikoshu couldn't detect what change she'd noticed; there was no movement along the parapets, no threatening gestures. But Yan-lin had most certainly sensed something. As if to confirm her fears several moments later, Diem started down the wall on his stone platform, and Hikoshu could now see what she meant.

Two guards, holding lamps, were coming down with him.

"Maybe they have to open the wall from the ground?" he suggested without any real hope that was true. Yan-lin ignored him as she started forward to meet Diem and his guests.

"Qin-qi!" Diem shouted, gesturing to Yan-lin. "These men wanted to meet you and your brother." Despite the apparent invitation, Hikoshu stayed where he was. Now that Yan-lin was gone, he was left holding the reins to both ostrich-horses. Fortunately, no one seemed to want to talk to him. The four met some distance away from him, their faces still obscured despite the lamps held high in the soldiers' hands. Quietly, they discussed something under their breaths, and occasionally a laugh would float up. After a short time, they broke apart, the green-armored men heading back to the wall as Yan-lin and Diem slowly made their way to Hikoshu. The nearer they came, the better he could see the white fog of their breaths, and the strain around Yan-lin's mouth.

"Well, that was close," Diem muttered, taking a bridle from Hikoshu. "Didn't think we'd get through that one."

"They'd already heard through the chute system that I might be trying to leave the city," Yan-lin said, her cheeks tinged pink by cold, fear, the dawn, or all three. "They didn't mention you." Just the same, Hikoshu fought back anxiety.

"How did you get out of it?"

Yan-lin shook her head in some wonderment. "They never even acted like they suspected us. It was almost like a formality."

That baffled him, too. But the guards were opening the wall for them, its rock shaking the earth as it slid in on itself, and Hikoshu was startled out of questioning their good fortune. The sheer immensity of such a wall opening for just three people really resonated with him, especially as this was the last display of Omashu's power he would witness for some time. And it seemed fitting, somehow—that the city would require such over-the-top grandeur for something as simple as walking through a gate. Looking back, Hikoshu thought that really, the wall summed up everything about Omashu. Restrictive, over-excessive, and a façade for something else entirely.

He decided right then that, if possible, he never wanted to set eyes on Omashu again.

**o~o~O~o~o**

One missed a lot when riding a bison. For instance, Hikoshu had missed tundras, woodlands, and even entire oceans. He'd also missed numerous mountain ranges, flying past them as if they were children's sand-temples, abandoned and then forgotten after the call for evening prayers. Now, as they skirted the foothills just east of Omashu, Hikoshu gained a greater appreciation for the geography he'd rarely ever seen in the air. How long had it taken to fly even half the length of the Kolau Mountain Range? He couldn't remember. But with a mountain now looming in front of him—Sangsi Mountain, as Yan-lin called it—Hikoshu dreaded the time it would take to climb just to the top of one. Especially during the dead of winter. Especially without supplies.

"I make this trip all the time," Diem explained on that first morning. "The pass to Gangzhou stays open for most of the year, and it's usually smooth enough for ostrich-horses." Hikoshu was still adamantly against riding something he didn't trust, but it became apparent early on that walking was out of the question on the sloped and rocky terrain.

"Ben-pao can carry both of us," Yan-lin suggested from the top of her saddle, just after they crossed the paifang arch that marked the beginning of the trail. "He shouldn't tire out before we reach the next town." He wanted to ask where the next town was, but more than anything, he just wanted to sleep. They'd been trying to escape for the entire night, after all. But Diem didn't look prepared to stop while they still had daylight and distance to put between them and Omashu, so Hikoshu motioned for Yan-lin to let him up.

He was starting to realize how much he'd taken for granted in the past. First the mountain range, and now the ostrich-horse. Hikoshu had imagined he'd just hop on back and that would be the end of it. But Yan-lin brought the ostrich-horse to a halt, dismounted, and adjusted the stirrups. Then she made him climb on first, which he suspected was done just to embarrass him, because he fell off backwards twice. Diem and Yan-lin laughed both times.

When Hikoshu finally made it on top, she adjusted the stirrups again, comforted the ostrich-horse—who was taking it pretty well considering how much Hikoshu had manhandled its neck—and pulled herself into the saddle in front of him. The natural curve of Ben-pao's back automatically made him slide forward and underneath her, leading them to fight over whose legs would go where.

"I'm going to be kneeing him in the crop if you don't move back," Yan-lin protested.

"If I move any further back, I'll have to hold onto this…jutting out…part to keep from falling off."

"That's a cantle. Here, let me put my legs behind yours."

"Ow! Careful where you're sitting! Maybe I should get in front."

"He should probably be in front, Yan-lin," Diem said with a grin from the back of his own ostrich-horse, which he'd turned around in order to enjoy the wrestling match.

"He doesn't know how to control a horstrich, Diem," Yan-lin said sharply, twisting in Hikoshu's lap and making him grimace. "Hold the horn. This will just have to do."

It didn't do at all, especially given the ostrich-horse's gait, which was so much jerkier than anything else he'd had the displeasure of riding. With each step, he was thrown forward, then thrown back. And each time, Yan-lin was thrown against his torso. At first he didn't mind, but then it started to chafe. Then _everything_ started to chafe. Despite his physical complaints, Hikoshu stayed quiet for the journey. After all, the pain helped keep him awake, and he knew if he lost his concentration even a little, he'd tumble out of the saddle. The scenery didn't help, though. Hours of the same thing, only the shadows varying as the sun inched higher in the sky. Rocks, dead grass, and barren trees. The beaten dirt trail wended around large boulders, steadily crawling up the side of Sangsi Mountain, unchanging, providing no protection against the fierce winter winds.

Once, the trail broke away from the rocks and mountainside that often boxed it in and ran along a steep cliff. Hikoshu's immediate reaction was not to look down, but his eyes were still drawn to the distant panorama. Gray peaks hovered on the horizon, some mottled with evergreens, many jagged while others were smooth. And in the center of them rose Omashu, a sandstone monster that loomed in the late afternoon sun.

He felt himself waver with the absurdity of the height and, clinging tighter to the saddle, he looked away.

They stopped an hour short of dark at a spot just off the main path, where the earth had been leveled and cleaned of vegetation. Diem dismounted from his ostrich-horse, leaving the beast at the edge of the clearing, and walked to center of the barren patch in order to bend stony structures from the rock. Effortlessly, he moved through the bending routines, knees rooted, arms straight and hard. And just as snow responded to a waterbender, the earth quaked to the commands of his _chi._

"I'll take care of the horstriches," Yan-lin volunteered as she slid down. Hikoshu started to follow her, but as soon as he swung a leg over the saddle, his thighs and groin protested in completely newfound pain. Grimacing, he stooped over when he hit the ground, and Yan-lin eyed him with an amused smile as she took the bridle.

"Hikoshu, you might want to rest," Diem said behind a rock wall, and he wasn't about to protest. In fact, he could barely walk. With shuffling steps, he made his way to the giant stone tent that Diem had raised into existence.

He didn't eat that night, the exhaustion and pain too much to allow him any appetite. Somehow, he scrounged up enough energy to make a fire for the other two occupants, but even before Yan-lin had finished with the ostrich-horses, Hikoshu was asleep. He didn't wake up until the next morning, when Diem roused him with the toe of his boot. Blue sky and a cold breeze greeted him, the sun just starting to peek over the trees, and Hikoshu realized that Diem had disintegrated the tent around him while he was unconscious.

"To give you a little extra time to sleep," he said with a grin, his hair now knotted on the back of his neck.

Sleep had perhaps taken an edge off of his exhaustion, but whatever aches he'd had the day before were augmented now. Even his shoulder blades hurt, as if he'd been lifting carts over his head. In addition, his stomach—which had politely surrendered to weariness during the previous evening—now demanded attention with audible groans. At least he could answer those concerns, and he munched on a sesame cake while watching Yan-lin saddle the ostrich-horses. True, the meager food items they had scrounged from the Two Lovers Inn couldn't compare to the lavish feasts served three times a day in the palace, but after a day and a half of no food, the slightly-sweet cake tasted amazing, and Hikoshu savored it. He made the cake last, such that he finished the last crumbs as Yan-lin finished the saddling.

"Tomorrow, you learn how to do this, too," she said as she held the ostrich-horse for him. Too busy figuring out the logistics of getting on the animal without moving his legs, Hikoshu ignored her.

Another day of silence passed, as well as the mountain. They crossed the Gangzhou pass around midday, well short of the timberline, and once on the other side—during a brief break in the evergreens—Hikoshu spied at least one other mountain left to climb. It was disheartening; though the ostrich-horses kept a surprisingly good pace, they would need at least another day to make it through the range. At one point, Diem nodded toward the mountain that Hikoshu dreaded, indicating the valley between.

"Gangzhou's at the bottom."

Hikoshu didn't look; he'd taken to focusing on the ache in his thighs and groin. He found if he concentrated on it, kind of like meditating, the pain dulled. So he worked hard at keeping his thoughts on the motion of the ostrich-horse, moving with it like he would've moved with water. Somehow, following the jerky sway made it better.

He still hurt when they made camp that night, but not enough to refuse Diem's offer of some unsalted boarcupine jerky. They all three sat around a fire that Hikoshu had made from nearby deadwood, its thick smoke billowing out of the hole that Diem had created in the stone tent. Quietly, Hikoshu gnawed on the meat with a furrowed brow, his thoughts on the flames and his muscles soaking in the heat.

"Feeling better today?" Diem said after a while, and he glanced up at the other man. He sat across the fire from Hikoshu, next to Yan-lin. The heat made the sandbender's face waver, and the light reflected as pinpoints in his green eyes, highlighting his thin beard that had started to grow out.

"My knees are sore," Hikoshu said, dropping the meat into his lap. "And I feel like someone's taken a hammer to my legs."

"That's the best kind of 'sore.'" Diem's voice was almost wistful, one side of his lips twisted into a small smile, and beside him, Yan-lin choked on her dried cheese.

"Diem, that's indecent," she said with a laugh, wiping at her mouth. Diem didn't acknowledge her chastisement, his eyes still on Hikoshu.

"You know, if it hurts too bad, I could rub those knots loose for you."

Yan-lin broke out into a high-pitched laugh at that comment, her hand once more to her mouth. Rocking backwards, she beamed over her fingers at Diem.

"That's about as fast as a chute-master on Pensions Day."

"What?" Finally, he looked to her, arching his brows so sharply that they rose halfway up his forehead. "I'm sorry, were you wanting to rub them?" That only made her laugh harder.

Hikoshu stared at them, feeling lost and more than a little uncomfortable. Uncertainly, he shook his head. "No…no, that's fine. I'll manage."

"Let me know if you change your mind. All those legs need is a good rubbing." Diem's expression was completely serious, but Yan-lin leaned over to slap him on the arm as if he was being a merciless tease.

"Behave. There's a lady present."

"Where?" he asked, looking her up and down with an incredulous frown, and she smiled as she tossed the cheese to him.

"At least keep the joking to a whisper. I need sleep." She then crawled away to curl up against a saddle, turning her back on them.

Hikoshu wished he could've joined her in sleep. However, exhaustion simply wasn't enough to overcome the pain tonight, and long after Diem and Yan-lin had both fallen victim to dreams, he sat up, watching the fire and trying hard not to dwell on whatever new muscle had started to ache. Travel was going faster than he thought it would; when the ostrich-horses got moving, they could really speed through the mountains. But he couldn't help but feel he was wasting time. Time he never really had in the first place.

A little over two weeks had passed since he left the Water Tribe, and now, Hikoshu couldn't remember if he'd planned for it to take this long. But hadn't they known that traveling to the desert on foot would require considerable time? Had they never even considered it because it had never really mattered? He wondered what was happening in the Poles now. If men were still dying, or if perhaps the spirit had moved on. Or if it had started to attack _anyone_ who had been to the North Pole at one time. Immediately, his thoughts went to Mayami.

_Mayami_. He missed her face, her laugh. The way her blue eyes could melt him as well as the snow. Waxing poetic, Hikoshu allowed himself to linger on comforting thoughts of her, until the worry and loneliness that always hovered close behind became too much and forced him to direct his mind elsewhere. Mayami was part of his past now. He wasn't even sure what she would do if she'd been thrown into the present, here in this tent, with him.

Probably tell him to learn how to ride a snow-blinded ostrich-horse. Hikoshu grinned at her imagined chastisement. Mayami would brook no silly nonsense for long; she was far too practical to let something like an animal stand in her way. Despite his intention to think of something else, Hikoshu entertained thoughts of her pretended advice and gained some strength from it. Eventually, she morphed into Miyo and her own advice, which had oddly similar overtures.

But then the worries intruded again, and he forced the two women away. The simple matter was that none of his loved ones were here to help, and even if they were, they'd be as clueless as he. Unless he intended to go to the Spirit World and take on this spirit by himself—which had worked so well the first time, he thought sarcastically—the journey was unavoidable. And so were the fears that he was taking too long to get there.

"Can't sleep?" The words shook Hikoshu from his dark stupor, and he scooted over as Diem took a seat next to him. The older man gave him a kindly smile, crossing his legs under him. "I was just playing around earlier, but really, if the pain's that bad, you might want to rub the aches out."

"I thought you were sleeping." He ignored the suggestion.

Diem gave a curt shrug. "I'm a light sleeper. Comes from my days out in the desert. Never really got over it."

Hikoshu wanted to ask him why he left, but he didn't know Diem well, and his impression was that the reason was something very personal. Something very bad. Refusing to pry, Hikoshu changed what he was about to say. "So how did you become a leatherworker?"

"Me?" Diem seemed surprised—and delighted—at the question, his expressive eyebrows once more rising on his forehead. "Well, I'd already had some experience coming into Omashu, and General Gi-Luon said I'd probably be best to find something I didn't need much training in, seeing as I'm a foreigner and all. So I took to making saddles. And it seems Omashu needs plenty of those."

"It looked like you make more than saddles," Hikoshu pressed, relaxing slowly. It was the first real conversation he'd had in days. No rushed words said under one's breath, or angry outbursts in what amounted to an international incident. No passionate emotions involved—just…talking. "I saw all sorts of things in your shop."

"Well, I don't much care for saddles," Diem confided. "I'm an artist, of a kind. I like making nice things. I even made some decorative boots for General Gi-Luon, and Yan-lin's favorite doll back when she was eight or so." It was odd, imagining that Yan-lin had once been eight, or that this man had been around to do things like that for her. He was only ten years older than she, as far as Hikoshu could guess. But that meant he must've been a pretty good leatherworker at a young age, and Hikoshu said as much.

"Being a personal friend of a powerful man doesn't hurt, either," Diem agreed with a shrug. Then, grinning and his eyes crinkling, he added, "So tell me how you became the Avatar."

Hikoshu returned the grin. "Well, you could say it was something I was born to do."

That made Diem laugh—a muffled, nasally snort of a laugh, obviously restrained for Yan-lin's sake. "A religious man with a sense of humor. I like that."

"I'm not much of a religious man," Hikoshu said, frowning. It was sad, but true. He might've been the symbol of spirituality around the world, but he'd long ago stopped practicing any kind of formal religion. He'd been exposed to too many cultures—learned too many things since he'd been ordained a Fire Sage. And while the spirits were very real things for him, he found himself incapable of worshipping any of them.

"Oh? Well, that's good, because I'm not all that religious either." Diem looked to the ceiling of the small shelter, as if trying to scry spirits far beyond the stone. "I figure I'd be best to concentrate on what I'm doing here, rather than what'll happen out there."

The statement ran too close to Hikoshu's thoughts from earlier, and he grew uncomfortable at the prospect of returning to them. Quickly, he changed the subject, donning a wry look as he rubbed at his head. "So I guess that's why you're not bowing and scraping before me?"

"Tell you the truth, my back hasn't been good in the past few years, so I don't bow all that much." Diem winked at him. "And about the only things I scrape anymore are hides, so…"

Hikoshu laughed easily, his unhappy mood chased away by good company. Diem reminded him somewhat of Natquik. Certainly, he looked nothing like the waterbender; in the fading light of a dying fire, his face was gaunter, more serious. As if he'd seen a harder life and had simply learned to adjust. But the openness and amiability of his expression dispelled discomfort and invited conversation. Pursing his mouth, Diem rubbed at his chin with two fingers, his gaze thoughtfully on Yan-lin.

"Actually, the truth is she trusts you. And I haven't met that many people she trusts."

"Who? Yan-lin?"

"Sure." With a smile, he looked back to Hikoshu. "Alright, maybe she's just smitten with you. But the way I see it, if she's got a good reason to like you, then I should, too. I mean, rains abound if the girl even likes her own father." His expression turned particularly flat at Hikoshu's confusion, and he leaned closer. "That means she doesn't like her own father."

That didn't really clear up the confusion. "The general? I didn't see anything wrong with him." And his instincts were usually pretty good at telling him when he shouldn't like someone. Then again, the things that she claimed her father had taught her were enough to turn Hikoshu's stomach and make him wonder if there was more to Gi-Luon than his instincts could tell him.

Diem held up a hand, his eyelids falling closed as if to ward off a dispute. "Wouldn't think to argue. But we know General Gi-Luon as just that—the general. Bet it's a fair bit different to have him as your father." He fell quiet for a moment, the snapping logs of a near dead fire filling the void. The subject of their conversation slumbered on in ignorance, curled against a saddle with her back to them, her chest moving rhythmically. "Yan-lin's had a hard time with her dad. I suppose he was doing the best he can, raising a girl by himself. Losing her mother like that, when she was so young…must have been tough on them both."

"What happened to her mother?" Hikoshu shouldn't have asked. The question was Yan-lin's to answer, and he doubted she would have wanted to. But the question was now out there, and Diem didn't seem to notice how inappropriate it was. He gave a baffled shake of his head.

"Can't say. She died a year or two before I met them. The general never talked much about it, and Yan-lin was little when it happened, only five or so." He spoke so softly that Hikoshu could barely hear him, and he wasn't entirely sure if it was done on purpose—in case Yan-lin wasn't really asleep—or if Diem had simply become too lost in his memories. "The general loved her mom a lot, though, that much I gathered. Nearly destroyed him when she died." Then, giving himself a shake, he drew his eyes back to Hikoshu. "You know, that's how I met him. After she died, he took off from Omashu, took Yan-lin with him. Bet they must've visited a dozen different countries before they wound up in the Si Wong."

"So he and Yan-lin came to your…tribe?" Hikoshu suddenly realized he knew nothing about the desert cultures. Diem must've realized it, too, as he leveled a knowing grin on him.

"Yeah, something like that. I was young, too. Must've been just shy of twenty years. But the general took a liking to me, saw I needed some help. He was headed back to Omashu, so he invited me along, and…well, here we are, thirteen years later."

Hikoshu nodded. "On a mountain in the middle of the Earth Kingdom, running from the King of Omashu." Diem laughed heartily at that, forgetting to check his volume.

"So we are, so we are. But that's what happens when you get mixed up with the Wen family. Knowing powerful people has its advantages, but the disadvantages can be just as extreme. Yan-lin might be able to get you out of trouble, but she'll just as quickly end up getting you back into it."

Involuntarily, Hikoshu's mind once more went to her lies and betrayals, so many years ago, and any good will he had for Yan-lin quickly died. How long until he could forget his old hatred for more than a few hours? Would he ever be able to? The feeling was miserable, ruining any peace Diem's company had generated. Diem must have seen the resultant gloom in his eyes, for his own expression hardened.

"The thing about Yan-lin is, she's never much good to anyone unless they're needing her for something. And, you know, ten years of that will get to a person. Really wears down your trust that anyone's looking out for _you_." The gaze he pinned Hikoshu with was severe. "Now, she seems to trust you, and that makes me hope that you're not using her."

That effectively wiped away his old resentment as guilt bloomed in its place. He _was_ using her. How was it he could feel so many contradicting emotions about just one person? Still, he couldn't explain all of that to Diem, so he shook his head and looked to the dirt on his fingers so that Diem wouldn't see how much of what he said was true. "I just didn't want to leave her in Omashu. Not with those people."

Diem hummed softly under his breath, and Hikoshu wasn't sure if he'd bought the explanation. "Well, keep in mind, she's one of those people. And when she's through here, she'll be going back. See, that was the mistake her father made thirteen years ago. A mistake a lot of us make." A somber note slipped into his voice. "You can't escape your past. No matter how hard you fight, it catches up sooner or later." Diem was talking about Yan-lin—he might've even been talking about himself, given the way he stared emptily at the fire. But at that moment, Hikoshu thought he was speaking directly to him. And his heart turned icy.

"I'm tired," he lied, shifting away from the fire. "Thanks for staying up with me, Diem. It was nice getting to know you." Diem flashed him a smile, once more cheery.

"My pleasure. Now I have a story to brag about back at the stable. Fireside chats with the Avatar." He gave an incredulous laugh under his breath as he crawled back to his saddle-turned-pillow. "They'd never believe it."

Hikoshu spared him a weary grin before curling up against the stone wall. And even though he had predicted that he wouldn't sleep, sleep eventually did find him. Yet it gave no respite. His dreams were haunted with faceless spirits, lakes of ice, and an unknown girl who was too sad to cry.


	25. Ch 24: Gangzhou

**Chapter 24 - Gangzhou**

* * *

"The shape of the spine means you don't have to worry about cinches," Yan-lin said over her shoulder, part of her face shielded by her hair. "But you do have to worry about the wings. The blanket needs to go over them, and you can't let it push on the flight feathers."

"I thought ostrich-horses can't fly," Hikoshu said dully, watching as she flipped a striped blanket across the animal's back. Dawn was still a bleak gray around them, the ground upheaved where Diem had dismantled their camping site.

"They can't, but they still have flight feathers." Well, that made no sense. "They're used for mating displays. Here, hand me the saddle."

The saddle, a narrow, curved contraption of green leather and surprising little weight, was oddly shaped. Then again, his basis of comparison was on bison and buffalo-yak, so he wasn't sure what exactly would've been 'normal shaped.' Obediently, he hefted it into his arms and passed it on. Yan-lin was far too small to saddle the ostrich-horse, but as in the previous days, she somehow managed, mostly through the grace of the beast's good humor.

"Check for misplaced feathers, adjust the stirrups, and you're done." Dusting her hands, she turned back to him with an accomplished smile. "Now you're ready to ride."

"You mean he's ready to cling on to you while _you_ ride," Diem corrected as he saddled his own mount, and her smile faded. "You'd probably be better off teaching him how to control a horstrich. Besides, I think your bird would be a little happier if you two switched positions. Readjusted your weight."

"But then she wouldn't be the one in charge," Hikoshu added facetiously, though in reality, he didn't want to learn. He had little interest in non-humans, animal and spirit alike, and he didn't intend to ride one of the creatures again after this. "I think she enjoys me being at her whim." Diem flashed him a half-grin beyond the black, fur-feathered neck of his ostrich-horse.

"Now if only you were the kind of man to enjoy it, too."

"I just don't trust him not to get us killed on these passes." Yan-lin looked between them with a petulant frown, clearly displeased with their mutual teasing. "I'll be glad to teach him on flat ground."

Diem disappeared behind the ostrich-horse's back. "Sure you will. But will you really ride rump after he learns?"

"Of course," Yan-lin obviously lied, and Hikoshu almost laughed at her transparency. "What?" she said sharply at his amusement.

"Nothing." He bent to gather up the saddle packs. "Just imagining how much happier I'll be when I'm between your legs, rather than you in between mine." Lugging the packs over his shoulders, he missed her appalled expression, though he heard Diem chuckle coarsely.

"Here, I thought you two were gentlemen," she muttered, her face red as she wrestled a bridle onto Ben-Pao's head. The ostrich-horse croaked in irritation at the rough treatment, but she didn't seem to notice. "It's hard to believe the Avatar would say such things."

"Yeah, well, two days ago, it was hard to believe I'd ever be this sore, either."

And to be sure, he was still sore. Walking, lifting, riding—it seemed no matter what he did, he would discover some new ache or protest. But the sensation had grown familiar, like the afterburn of a strenuous training session, and it slid easily to the back of his thoughts now whenever he chose to ignore it. So with little concern, but also with little enthusiasm, he took his place behind Yan-lin and resumed his usual silence.

Hikoshu supposed he could have tried some conversation. Certainly, it would have made it easier for him to stay awake, given the monotony of the skinny mountain trees and the heavy exhaustion that still haunted him from last night. Yet with nothing to say to Yan-lin, and no interest in speaking to her hair bun, Hikoshu remained mute, letting his mind wander over the crisp blue sky and a biting wind that brushed over the slopes. The two ostrich-horses, in line with each other, clicked sharp talons against the rock-strewn path, and the sun crept along behind them.

"Talk to me, Hikoshu," Yan-lin suddenly said, after they had gone most of the day, and through three breaks, without speaking. Hikoshu had to shake himself from a long stupor.

"About what?"

"Something. Anything." She turned her head to look at him out of the corner of her eye, though the awkward jostle of the ostrich-horse kept him from holding her gaze. "After all of these years, and I can't even say what your favorite color is, or if you play an instrument. So just tell me something."

The feeling was mutual. Maybe she, too, had realized that after everything they'd been through together, they really were just strangers. "Random details won't tell you who I am."

"They'll tell me what to get you for New Year."

He didn't smile at the joke, nor did he respond at first. He needed a moment simply to find an answer. "You know that orange color right before dusk? On the bottom of the clouds? That's my favorite color. When it looks like the sky's on fire." He'd watch the sunset often at the Western Air Temple: the mixture of colors, from deep violet to a light coral pink. Then there, just around the sun, that halo of gold—a crown of burning clouds. Nothing else had yet compared to such a sight. "And I don't play any instruments."

"Do you read?"

"Not since the Fire Temples. Never had much time."

"Games?"

"Pai sho, on occasion. We used to have iceberg-jumps during the summers in the South Pole, but I'm not a very good swimmer."

"Anyone special in your life?"

His thoughts immediately went to Mayami. Her smiling face, the thin tattoo twisting with her cheek. "No. Not really."

Again, she went quiet, and he wondered if the game of questions was over. If perhaps she had grown bored. "I like tree bark," Yan-lin said finally, just as he started to think she wouldn't speak again. "Every tree has different bark. Some are orange underneath, some are white. Some smell and taste bitter, some are fragrant. And no matter where you are, you can always find your way by the trees." Swiftly, then, she answered her own questions, as if he had asked them in turn. "I play four instruments. I read now more than I used to. My favorite pai sho move is the Tiger-Dog Pouncing, and I've never swam in my life."

"Never?"

"I don't like deep water."

"Well…I guess I now know everything about you," he said dryly, and though he couldn't see her expression, he knew she was grinning.

"I'm a pretty simple person."

"Somehow I doubt that." He paused, almost surprising himself with his next suggestion. "Maybe after all of this, I can teach you how to swim."

"You'd want to take me swimming?" Now _she_ sounded dry. "Somehow I doubt that, too."

Silence once more. But it seemed different now—less hostile, less intolerable, as if some old ghost of ill-boding had been chased away. Perhaps it was because he and Yan-lin had just shared their first real conversation in years. They had never felt anything but anger and mistrust for the other, every exchange weighed carefully for truth and discarded more often than not. But now they spoke of tree bark and icebergs, and despite the insignificance of the idle chat, it had a profound effect on him. Suddenly, almost involuntarily, he let his arms relax around her waist and allowed his body the slightest contact with hers. Yan-lin must have felt the change, but she held tightly to the saddle with one hand, struggling to give him space.

Diem eventually broke the quiet, glancing back at them over the swaying fluff of his ostrich-horse's tail. "This pass is a lot busier in the early part of the spring. They use it for trade in peas, wheat, beans, so on. During the winter, though, Omashu looks to the southern and western slopes for the fish trade."

"I don't think Hikoshu cares about how Omashu feeds itself," Yan-lin said, which made Diem grin. She was right; he didn't care. But he also suspected that such small details were important things for an Avatar to know. Stowing the information away in his mind and hoping it'd find somewhere to stick, Hikoshu spoke up.

"Is this the only pass to the east?"

"More or less." His ostrich-horse chirruped loudly as Diem gestured toward the surrounding countryside, hidden by dense thickets of pines. "These mountains are hard to cross. In fact, I'd say the range itself protects Omashu more than any wall or chasm. It was created by an earthbender to separate two warring tribes. Bet you didn't know that."

"One earthbender did all of this?" Hikoshu didn't mask his surprise, or disbelief. The mountain range which held Omashu was enormous, quite possibly the tallest one he'd ever seen. He could hardly imagine any bender, even an Avatar, having the power to raise such giants from the earth.

Diem acknowledged his skepticism with another grin, the quirky expression spreading easily across his face as he leaned backwards. "Well, the war ended up killing the man she loved. And you'd be amazed at the power one person has when what she loves is threatened."

"Hikoshu doesn't like tragic love stories," Yan-lin interjected, and that surprised him more than the story had. Not so much because he didn't remember telling her something so trivial—which he certainly didn't—but because she _did_ remember it. "He finds them more tragic than romantic."

"Fighting for what you love most is always romantic," Diem said simply, holding up his hand with a dramatic flare, and Yan-lin's ostrich-horse gurgled in agreement. Yan-lin in turn flashed Hikoshu a look of smug satisfaction, as if they'd been engaged in a years-long battle and she had just been declared the victor. Even without knowing the argument, Hikoshu felt compelled to scowl, yet instead he found himself smiling at her private glance.

"Have you ever been to Gangzhou, Hikoshu?" Diem continued, facing forward once more.

"This is the farthest I've traveled into the continent."

"Well, then, you're in for a treat."

It took time for him to understand Diem's meaning. As the day progressed and the trees thinned, the deadened roar of a distant river began to hover on the edge of his awareness. He didn't think much of it until close to sunset, when the ostrich-horses took a sharp turn in the trail, the mountain dropping away to form a steep precipice. Reflexively, Hikoshu swung his head toward the less-dizzying underbrush of the opposite side, but not before the panorama caught his eye. The mountain east of them was stark against the lavender-hued sky, its mottled green face cast in a golden light from the setting sun. So abrupt were the colors that Hikoshu nearly missed the city that stood at its base, as brilliant as if it were made of bronze.

After a moment, he realized it was actually made of the same sandstone as Omashu, emerald-tiled roofs glittering over smoothed walls that turned coarse where they morphed into the city's foundation. The base itself was an island of rock, looming high above a wide, deep-flowing river. Shadows darkened its foaming rapids, which crashed loudly on the rock and divided the eastern mountain from the one the travelers currently sat atop.

"Gangzhou's the only way for any eastern invading army to cross the Yongsan River," Diem said as he brought them to a stop, and Hikoshu took note of the two bridges that connected the island town to either mountain. "Needless to say, it's a little hard. Anyone makes an attempt, and earthbenders just wipe out the bridges. Amazing city, really." With that, he kicked his ostrich-horse back into motion. "Come on. If we hurry, we'll make it before dark."

"It's lovely," Hikoshu said, mostly to himself. And it _was_ lovely. Not so much for its unique features, but because it reminded him of the Western Air Temple. An island in the sky.

Yan-lin nodded. "The Earth Kingdom has many lovely places." Her voice was soft, almost sad, and he glanced at her in curiosity. "Beautiful places." Yet before he could ask, she spurred the ostrich-horse on, and the city disappeared behind the trees as the sun's lingering warmth faded away.

When they finally reached the paifang arch that marked the mountain-side of the West Bridge, the gold of late afternoon had transformed into purple dusk. Immediately, Hikoshu was struck by the stark differences between Omashu and Gangzhou. Even at this time of day, the bridge was open, without guards or walls, and a smattering of people still strolled along the jumble of wooden and stone merchant stalls that lined each side. With the encroaching twilight, most had chosen to close up shop, and Hikoshu suspected from their look of sheer permanence that the town had never been threatened enough to institute the defense mechanisms that Diem had described.

The cobble streets of the town proper were narrow and the buildings were tall, creating a darkness only intermittently broken by street lamps or lanterns hung over doors. People flitted in and out of the shadows of these as well, with so little concern or malicious intent that Hikoshu unconsciously relaxed. As if familiar with the roads, Diem guided them through alleys that held no enemies, and long after Hikoshu lost his sense of direction, they emerged on a broader thoroughfare. To the left of them stood a stone building slathered in yellow paint, which seemed to be Diem's destination as he brought his ostrich-horse to a halt in front of it. From around its wooden window slats drifted voices and music, indicating that business had not yet closed for the night.

"This is where I take my leave," Diem said, slipping down from his ostrich-horse. He tossed his reins along the saddle horn and then approached their mount to help Yan-lin off. Instead of placing her on the ground, he held her in a tight hug, her toes barely brushing the stone.

"Are you sure you won't come with us?" She sounded detached, but with the light seeping through the window slats, Hikoshu could see the desperate way she clung to his over-robe. In response, Diem gave her an affectionate smile, resting a hand on her head.

"You'll be fine. If anyone could talk them into helping, mud pie, you could."

"You're not staying the night?" Hikoshu asked in confusion as he, too, dismounted, though with far less grace. Diem glanced over the top of her head to take him in.

"I have to head back. Huan didn't know I'd be gone this long, and I'm liable to lose my job if I don't hurry on home."

"But you'll break a toe in the dark, or walk off a cliff," Yan-lin murmured as she stepped away.

"I've been up these passages countless times. I know where all the rocks and drop-offs are." Then, pulling her into one last hug, Diem pressed her head under his chin. "You have to be careful. Don't tell anyone I helped you, alright?" She said something into his coat that Hikoshu didn't quite hear, but which made Diem smile.

"I appreciate everything you've done," Hikoshu said, starting to bow. Diem waved off the gesture.

"Here's something about sand-dweller culture. They bow like this." He pushed Yan-lin back so that he could bend at the waist. Instead of pressing his hands together, however, he held them up next to each other, palms toward his face and close enough that Hikoshu could only see his eyes. "Cover your mouth. It's a big thing with the sandpeople." He straightened as Hikoshu mimicked the gesture. "And stand on one leg."

Yan-lin laughed, pushing at his arm, which made him grin. Realizing he was being teased, Hikoshu dropped his hands and stared at them flatly.

"Good enough. Yan-lin can probably help you polish up." Then Diem mounted his ostrich-horse again and recovered his reins. "Take care, mud pie. Watch your back." He brushed a finger down his nose with one last cocky grin. And then he was nothing more than a retreating form on a dark street.

Yan-lin watched him go long after the night had swallowed him, neither the light nor the silence illuminating whatever she was feeling. Finally, as the evening cold became too much to bear, Hikoshu touched her arm to catch her attention.

"Will you be all right?"

"Yes, of course," she said automatically, glancing at him with apparent apathy. "Why wouldn't I be?" Quickly, she turned away to seize the ostrich-horse's bridle. But Hikoshu had seen something in her expression when she looked at him. Something he recognized despite her attempts to hide it, because it closely echoed the singular emotion he'd had for weeks.

Loneliness.

**o~o~O~o~o**

"Four days to cross the grasslands," Yan-lin said, a thin finger tracing the map spread in front of her, symbols scrawled in yellowed ink along its surface. She was on her stomach, stretched out on the bed, a lumpy mattress stuffed with hay and thrown precariously on a rickety wood frame. Aside from a rough-hewn chest and an even rougher stool, the room was relatively empty.

"Four days," she continued, her bare feet swaying in the air as she spoke, "until we reach Aksu. Then it's just a matter of finding sandbenders willing to help us."

"And how long will that take us?" Hikoshu said from his spot on the floor. The bed didn't look like it could hold two people, nor did the stool look like it could hold one, and so he sat cross-legged just below the mattress while he fiddled with his shoe. Diem had been able to provide a pair to replace his worthless palace slippers, all gilt and no substance. But all of his good leather would have gone into shoes he could sell, and so the mountain had already worn holes into the thin soles. Hikoshu was going to have to pad them, at this rate.

"Depends." She pushed her loose hair over her shoulder and propped her chin in her palm. "It's the end of the caravan season, and I don't know which tribe controls the oasis town."

"How long does that mean?"

She shot him a perturbed frown, carefully refolding the map along its worn creases. "I don't know. Days, maybe weeks. It all depends on how fast we can find sandbenders, and then convince them to help us."

Hikoshu groaned and allowed himself to collapse backwards onto the hard stone floor, a brush of bent air cushioning his fall. "We don't have that kind of time."

"It's the best we can do, without Diem. They're a very insular culture; they don't often volunteer to act as trail guides for outsiders."

"Can we buy their help?"

"With what money?" The bed creaked as Yan-lin sat up. "I only found enough caches for supplies to get us to Aksu. And unless you have any…"

"Whatever the Tribes gave me, I left at the palace." He stared absently at the cracked ceiling and wondered if there was another room above them. He supposed there was, as he could hear its occupants on occasion as they moved around. What problems were _they_ facing? Were they merchants? Traveling poets? Was this just an unremarkable stop in an already-long road? Distracted, Hikoshu almost forgot their own conversation. "I suppose I can charm them into helping."

Yan-lin snorted. "You should probably leave that up to me."

"I would, if you were at all charming." Silence answered him, and the bed groaned again.

"You're not going to sleep down there, are you?"

He lifted his head to spy Yan-lin over the questionably-sturdy wood rods that made up the foot-board. She was peering at him, having crawled forward along the mattress, her expression doubtful.

"I don't imagine you want to sleep on the floor," he said simply and let his head fall back.

"The proprietor said the bed could hold two."

"Well, the proprietor was lying."

"Hikoshu," she said with some frustration, her tone sounding eerily close to Miyo's when she thought he was being ridiculous, "you shouldn't have to sleep on the floor. There's plenty of room up here."

"If you're going to insist, then I'll take the bed and you take the floor."

"The point is for neither of us to be on the floor." A half-melted candle, sitting in a pool of tallow atop the stool, cast odd shadows on her face and disguised all but the irritation in her voice. Which was too bad—it meant he couldn't see the reaction his next comment garnered.

"I'm not sleeping with you, Yan-lin."

That left her at a loss for words, though it didn't curtail her distinct ire. Hikoshu merely folded his arms under his head and returned to his quiet contemplation on their invisible neighbors above. He knew he was annoying her incredibly. And to be honest, after the last two unbearable nights in the mountains, that mattress—lumpy though it was—looked as comfortable as an Omashu feather bed. But if it meant spending the night next to her, he imagined he would just take the discomfort.

"Fine," Yan-lin said, the word clipped, and suddenly she slid off the bed, Diem's bulky, cast-off robes nearly tripping her. "If we both can't have the bed, then neither of us will." He watched her askance as she lay beside him and rested her head against her elbow so that she could level a haughty look of challenge at him.

Preposterous. But at least her stubborn-headedness had left the bed now free, and Hikoshu seized the opportunity by getting up. "Suit yourself."

"Oh, no!" she snapped, and much faster than he anticipated, she'd sprung after him, jumping to the opposite side of the mattress. "Not without me."

Hikoshu stared at her with mouth half-agape. Why was she being so persistent? Whether it was out of childish humor or pure obstinacy, he wasn't sure. Instead of fighting it, however, he surrendered the bed once more. "Alright."

"I'm sleeping wherever you are, Hikoshu," she said firmly, which made him pause. Yan-lin eyed him with determination, her expression devoid of the absurdity that such a response should have merited.

Though part of him refused to be goaded into juvenile disputes, another part of him—the part that never could ignore a challenge—balked at the idea of this tiny girl telling him what to do. Rising to her bait, and thoroughly galled that he was, Hikoshu slowly climbed onto the mattress in newfound defiance. "You're not getting on this bed." But as he shifted his weight against the framework, the wood groaned unpleasantly, and with a spark of fear, he looked down in full expectation of it breaking.

Yan-lin took advantage of the moment of distraction to crawl onto the bed as well. This sent a surge of panic through him as the frame groaned even more loudly, but it was quickly drowned out by the panic that she might win. Hikoshu grabbed at her shoulders to push her off, and Yan-lin agilely ducked under his arms. He made another attempt which she just as easily evaded. Then after that, the scene morphed into chaos.

Hikoshu had no idea how he was failing to seize someone so petite; whenever he captured her elbow or caught her waist, she slipped away like water, and even his most complicated pins she foiled as if she were some wind spirit. More often than not, he found himself entangled in the blanket, struggling to free his hands as she laughingly dodged another failed hold.

And that was perhaps the most infuriating part—she was laughing. Yan-lin obviously didn't take the struggle nearly as seriously as he did, nor was she acknowledging the grating threat of the unhappy bed below them. The more determined Hikoshu became in conquering her, the funnier Yan-lin found the situation, as if they were two children engaged in a wrestling match. It spurred him to fight harder, though his renewed efforts were just as unsuccessful. And all the while, Yan-lin rolled across the mattress in fits of giggles.

So focused was he on the fight, Hikoshu didn't even notice when his anger first abated, or when he first started to enjoy himself. Only after Yan-lin, gasping and choking with mirth, gave up her fight to escape did he realize he was laughing, too. She surrendered the struggle grudgingly, allowing him to pin her against the half-mauled mattress. Still, a victory was a victory, even one that was handed to him, and as he straddled her waist, savoring his win, Hikoshu gave her a look full of smug glee.

"Bed's mine, diplomat."

Though her brown eyes danced with dying merriment, Yan-lin still managed a defiant glare, blowing away the wild swath of hair that had fallen in her face. "From where I'm lying, it looks like we're both on here."

Saltpeter. She was right. But his failure didn't sting as much as he expected, and he grinned broadly. "Well, it's going to be a very uncomfortable position to sleep in."

"Maybe for whoever's on top," she said snidely, which made him laugh in disbelief.

"Fortunately, I have no problem with being on top."

Abruptly, the innocent nature of their game vanished. Gone was the child-like joy the fight had conjured, and Hikoshu saw the scene for what it was. How he hovered over her, holding her wrists against the mattress just beside her head, and how the rhythmic movement of her breasts slowed with the passing of each tense moment. Yan-lin had finally realized it, too; her smirk melted into something shocked and a little less than certain, her eyes holding his in nervous anticipation. Waiting for him to act.

But for once, Hikoshu had no instinct to act on: only emotion, which he'd long ago learned to avoid when it came to impulses. "I'll sleep on the floor," he finally said, his voice still husky with his ambivalence, and too swiftly, Yan-lin nodded. Neither of them knew what had just happened, except that it wasn't supposed to. So Yan-lin didn't stop him as he climbed off the bed and retrieved his over-robe, slung carelessly over the chest.

She sat up while Hikoshu found his spot on the floor again, and he could feel her gaze on him as he bunched the old coat under his head. Hikoshu studiously avoided her eyes the whole time, just so she couldn't read his expression or he hers. With his eyes closed, he listened to the bed creak under her. A moment later, the bed stopped its noise as she blew the candle out.

**o~o~O~o~o**

The streets were bustling.

Hikoshu hadn't seen a bustling street in years, and so he watched with dim awe as men toting carts mingled in the fairway alongside women toting children. They all seemed to be going somewhere, bundled up against the chilly morning in coats and over-robes of varying browns. Occasionally there was a gray coat, or even a yellow one. But other than that, they were simply an anonymous crowd, different only in what direction they were facing.

How they could be so happy so early in the day, he couldn't guess. Of course, likely he was _un_happy due to a miserable night on the floor. As a result, he scanned them with both awe and irritability, his clothes wrinkled and his hair awry from total disinterest in fixing either.

"Twelve coppers for two packs of feed?" Yan-lin was indignant. Glancing over from his perch against the stone wall separating two stalls, Hikoshu saw her embroiled in an argument with a green-robed, crab-faced woman who glowered at her from behind the counter. The stone stall, much like every stall along that street, had been bended conveniently from the side of the building just for this morning's market. To his right was another merchant, selling watered-down milk to two twelve-year-old girls. And across from him was a long line of a dozen differently shaped stalls selling anything from fresh rock-bass to glazed pottery.

"Twelve coppers. The North River Pass is snowed in and no seed is coming through. I can't go any lower." The crab-faced woman had hitched her wool sleeves up to her elbows, and the way the two hair buns pulled at her face made her glower look even surlier. Honestly, Hikoshu was glad Yan-lin was handling it. If it'd been left up to him, he would've just given her the money and taken the feed.

But, then again, he'd never had to haggle for anything. Spending nearly twenty years in one sheltered environment or another, Hikoshu had never had to pay for anything, either. On the few occasions he'd ventured from his sanctuaries, his needs had been universally met with little argument, if not total respect. The fact was that the Avatar would not be denied anything; too many people assumed it would result in the destruction of the world if they didn't give him whatever he wanted.

"The pass cleared up three weeks ago," Yan-lin said, utterly patient, though her tone was still offended by the exorbitant price. "And by the time the new seed comes in, that pack of seed you're refusing to sell me now will have rotted. Nine coppers. Not a half-copper piece more."

"Eleven coppers. I can always feed it to the cow-swine."

Actually, Hikoshu realized in surprise, this was perhaps the first time that his Avatar-hood _hadn't_ come into play. In fact, he'd been known as the Avatar for nearly ten years now, and yet, at this very moment, he was cloaked in obscurity. Perhaps he was a little taller than most of the men who stopped in groups of two or three to joke with each other. Perhaps his clothes didn't fit as well as theirs, either. But for the most part, he was indistinguishable from any other person on that busy street.

For the first time in ten years, he was merely Hikoshu. Uncomfortable, he leaned a foot against the wall and tried hard to blend into the stone.

"Alright, a silver and nineteen coppers for two packs of feed, a sack of snow potatoes, a bunch of red carrots, and whatever peas you have left." They must've been reaching the end of the bartering, and he shot Yan-lin a surreptitious look as she pressed a hand on the counter. The crab-faced woman nodded.

"Two silvers and I'll throw in a sack of rice."

"Done. I'll be back with my horstrich to collect." The two women bowed to each other in agreement, and then Yan-lin was grabbing his arm to drag him into the crowd.

"Eleven coppers for moldy seed." She still sounded incensed as she marched in front of him, her braided bun bobbing with the angry jerks of her head. "Can you believe it? Really, I'll have to talk to Prefect Jusun about Gangzhou."

"So are we going to buy some new clothes now? And shoes?" Perhaps he should have let her finish her rant, but he was more interested in finding a pair of shoes that weren't losing their soles, as well as breakfast. The odor floating from a nearby noodle shop was quite tantalizing, and quickly, he forgot all about his frozen toes.

"Whatever clothes we buy right now, we'll have to replace in three days anyway." She turned her head to look at him askance. "Hikoshu, are you listening?"

Not really. They'd enter a plaza, filled with an assortment of people and dominated by a frozen fountain. A highly stylized, white stone armadillo-bear knelt in its center, five times the size of any flesh-and-blood armadillo-bear, its enormous paw tramping on a marble fish just above the fountain's dry basin. That, combined with the citizens who seemed far brighter than the gray sky creeping above them, robbed him of what little attention he could normally spare.

"Hikoshu!"

"Yeah, I'm listening." He hated it when she treated him like a child. "When are we leaving?"

Yan-lin didn't seem to believe him, her indignant look of earlier now leveled on him. "I already told you, probably not until after noon. Now that we don't have Diem's earthbending skills, we're going to need camping supplies. As in tents and sleeping rolls."

"Tent? Why do we need a tent?" He scoffed openly at the sky. "It hasn't snowed at all."

As if on cue, large, soft flakes began to fall on the crowd. Hikoshu stared at the clouds blankly, half-wondering if he'd caused it or if some spirit up there just found it amusing to toy with him. Yan-lin crossed her arms under her breasts, her expression wry.

"That's perfect. Maybe you could ask for it to rain money next, or perhaps even sandbenders." Then she walked away, leaving him to watch the sky in some expectation. With the abrupt change in weather, everyone was rushing now. They scurried across the cobblestone square, wood shoes clattering against the pavement, their hoods tugged down tight against a snowfall that was growing increasingly heavier.

Hikoshu normally would have bended the flakes away until he found shelter, but being so conspicuous in the middle of the plaza, he just hunched his shoulders and followed Yan-lin. Unfortunately, Diem hadn't had extra hoods that fit either of them, and now their heads were bare, exposed to the elements. In front of him, Yan-lin's bun was dotted with snowflakes.

Suddenly she stopped and turned to him, nearly causing him to run into her. He could see her cheeks were flushed with the wind and snow, her skin wet where the latter had melted. "We might not get out of the mountains if it keeps snowing like this." There was an implicit question in her voice.

"I can handle the snow," Hikoshu said with a frown, his eyes automatically traveling to the mountain rising above them, its silhouette obscured in white. "But I can't follow the trail."

"We'll have to be quick, then. Perhaps we can find someone at the inn who'll be willing to sell a spare tent." Absently, she brushed at his shoulder, and he turned his frown on her hand. "You're covered in flurries."

"Well, we _are_ standing in the snow." His frown deepened as she smiled up at him. "What?"

"Nothing," she said quickly, though her smile grew wider. "It's just that it's kind of silly. I mean, here you are, most intimidating man in the world, and you're wearing a snow crown."

"Snow crown?" he asked uncertainly, tilting his head back as if he could see his own head, but Yan-lin clasped his chin to hold him still.

"No, don't. Don't ruin it." Then, satisfied he wouldn't disturb the thin layer of snow, she released his jaw. "It looks charming."

"Oh, no, we wouldn't want to ruin how _charming_ my frozen scalp looks," he retorted, but her smile made him grin, and they shared a comfortable—if very cold—moment of silence.

It was broken quite sharply by an unexpected voice. "Mistress Yan-lin!"

She wheeled around at that, her smile vanishing into a look of horror, and even with her back to him, Hikoshu could feel the anxiety come off of her in waves. Not twenty paces away, two soldiers watched them, their armor hidden under thick green coats that extended to their calves, their heads covered in the wide salakot helmets of the Omashu guard. Perhaps she should've never turned at the call of her name, and Hikoshu imagined Yan-lin was quietly cursing herself for the hasty action. But it was too late now; the young soldiers had recognized her, and with caution, they approached.

"What are you doing out here, Mistress Yan-lin?" the sharp-nosed man on the right asked, feigning an easy-going manner that was betrayed by his stiffened shoulders. Next to him, his stouter, shorter friend walked with the same tension, though it also showed on his face. Even as the first man spoke to Yan-lin, the soldiers' eyes were on Hikoshu.

"It's official business for Omashu, and nothing I'm at liberty to discuss, Private Kinfu." Yan-lin's posture didn't change as far as he could tell, but abruptly she assumed a commanding presence, her voice filled with iron and her height increasing by imaginary inches. She was now the cool politician, ripped violently from his memories and shoved back into the present.

"I'm sorry, Mistress Yan-lin." The youth really did seem apologetic as the two stopped several paces from them. "But a message came two days ago. From the king. Said that if you were to pass through here, we should stop you."

Hikoshu didn't make any threatening gesture, though he adjusted his shoulders to show that he was certainly prepared to. "You might want to reconsider if that's an order you feel comfortable following." At his vague threat Yan-lin turned to shoot him a look of warning, which filled him with frustration. The two soldiers, partly hidden in the heavy snowfall, were quite obviously tense; Hikoshu could have scared them away with just a growl and an evil stare, if she would let him.

"His Majesty wanted to detain us?" Yan-lin addressed them again, her voice both indifferent and slightly dumbfounded, as if this were simply too ridiculous to believe. "Did His Majesty state why?"

"Not the both of you, Mistress Yan-lin," the young man—Kinfu—said, shifting his feet enough to disturb the layer of snow that had built on his flat helmet. "Just you."

"We were ordered to escort you back to Omashu." His friend had a much gruffer, more confident tone. "He said that you left the city without official permission, and that you were a witness to a possible attack."

"Of course." Yan-lin's words were deliberate. "Well, I will be glad to heed His Majesty's command, just as soon as I finish this current matter."

"His order was immediate." Again, Kinfu was casting him anxious glances, unconsciously touching a ceremonial sword at his hip. "No exceptions."

"And his order can burn, for all I care." Hikoshu allowed some of his irritation to creep into his voice.

"Hikoshu, no," Yan-lin said softly, spinning around to place a hand on his chest. He hesitated at the beseeching look in her large eyes. "Please, don't. Not over this."

"What are you planning to do?"

"What else? Go back to Omashu." Quickly, she dug the map out of a deep pocket inside her over-robe and pressed it into his hand. "Take Ben-Pao, get to Aksu. Find a sandbender."

"What?" Surprised, he didn't stop her from shoving a small purse of money into his other hand. "No…no, I can't. Not without you." He'd assumed she had _some_ plan. But this wasn't a plan at all.

"Listen, they're just soldiers following orders. You know you can't fight them. But it's fine. You'll be fine." She now flattened both of her palms against his chest, as if that would calm him. "I'll be fine. This is how it's supposed to be." She gave him an encouraging smile. The absurdity of her encouraging _him_ when she was the one heading back into that mess would've been laughable had it not been so upsetting.

"You're not going back with them."

Her smile grew softer at his protest, and swiftly, she stood on tiptoe to plant a kiss on the side of his mouth. "Thank you. For giving me another chance." When she stepped back, her eyes were filled with such sincerity that it actually tore at his heart, and she plucked at his wrists. "You should hide those, before you give some pickpocket ideas." Satisfied that he would conceal the map and coin purse on his own, Yan-lin gave him one more look of saddened reassurance, then pivoted toward the guards. "I'm happy to oblige His Majesty however I can."

Was she? As Yan-lin assumed her place between the two green-coated soldiers, Hikoshu watched her retreating back with helpless confusion. No, she couldn't _want_ to go back to that life, but she obviously thought she deserved it. Perhaps, something in him reasoned, she did. Even if her demeanor had changed, Yan-lin's knack for subterfuge hadn't, and more than once Hikoshu had questioned the wisdom of trusting her again. So perhaps, by allowing her to leave, he had saved himself from suffering the same fate twice.

But he needed her. He needed her diplomacy with the sandbenders, he needed her pragmatism on the journey, and frankly, he needed her just to ride the ostrich-horse. More than anything, however, Hikoshu needed to know that he was never wrong to trust her.

The snowfall that obscured the trio walking away suddenly grew heavier, though none of them seemed to notice. Only when it became a veritable white-out did the soldiers stop in wonder, unaware that everywhere else in the plaza, the snow had ceased altogether. Hikoshu then seized the moment of confusion he'd created from the snow in order to bend Yan-lin backwards, the air ripping her away from the soldiers so violently that it sent the flakes into a whirlwind around them.

Yan-lin gave a yelp as she slammed into his chest. He shoved his hand against her mouth to forestall a cry and yanked her in the direction opposite the soldiers. "Come on, go!"

"Hikoshu!" she shouted, dragging behind him, which made him jerk harder on her hand to get her to run.

"It's not open to discussion, so just—" Hikoshu pulled up short as the ground shook, causing Yan-lin to smash into him. Just at that second, stone shot up in front of them, barring their way as three more walls emerged on all sides to box them both in. Growling, he threw the side of his hand and a powerful fire blast into the barrier, and the rock exploded as he pulled Yan-lin through the flames.

What remained of Gangzhou's citizens—the ones who hadn't yet escaped the snowy plaza—shrieked at the explosion and scattered as he dashed toward the fountain, the only source of cover in the wide-open square. Behind them, the soldiers refrained from another attack, but shouted instead for support. Clinging to his hand, Yan-lin gasped with the effort of running.

"Hikoshu, this isn't helping!"

"But going back to Omashu would?"

Her response morphed into a scream as the cobblestones crumpled underneath their feet, and Hikoshu grabbed her shoulders as he leapt the remaining distance into the fountain basin. To his surprise, he didn't find it dry; the water was frozen at the bottom, which caused them to slip and crash into the lower lip of the fish statue. Hauling Yan-lin hastily up with one hand, Hikoshu melted the fountain bed with the other. The ice shifted and dropped them a foot as it became water, nearly depositing them back in the basin, but Hikoshu kept his balance as he pushed Yan-lin behind him. Then, reeling in a tight circle, he threw the water as one gigantic wave from the fountain. It slammed against the cobblestone, ricocheting into two streams that met head-on the two original guards and pinned them to the ground with ice. Another soldier had already come to their aid, and Hikoshu let the remnant water course off of them to take him down as well.

Satisfied that they wouldn't come after them at least for the moment, Hikoshu once more took Yan-lin and ran. She was out of breath, which prevented any more arguments, and so she followed wordlessly behind him as he dove across the remaining plaza to disappear between the buildings. The screams of bystanders had faded into the curt, shouted commands of the Omashu guard. He knew they didn't have long before the entire town watch descended on them, which meant they needed to disappear.

Rounding the first corner, however, he found their escape cut off by a blind alley, a two-story building before them. As Hikoshu stared hopelessly at the cracking façade, Yan-lin took the moment of reprieve to plant her hands on her knees and catch her breath.

"They're earthbenders!" she gasped. "We can't outrun them when we're surrounded by earth!"

"So we'll hide." Then, ignoring her complaints, he scooped Yan-lin into his arms and jumped for an open window right below the drooping eaves.

He just didn't realize it wasn't actually open until Yan-lin screamed.

Twisting mid-air, he threw his back toward the black-oak shutters and wrapped his body into a ball around Yan-lin. The maneuver required a significant amount of airbending, which buffered the impact enough that he was afraid they would just bounce off and plummet back to the earth. To avoid that, he blew out his breath hard; the resultant air blast tossed them through the shutters and splintered the wood in the process. Yan-lin fell out of his arms as they tumbled into the room, crashing through folding screens and furniture.

Hikoshu winced as he pushed himself up from the rubble. A shard of pottery, the size of his finger, had embedded itself in the bottom of his palm. He ripped it out with his teeth and staunched the bleeding against his hip, then scanned the room for Yan-lin. Nearby, she moaned quietly as she lifted herself from the woven mat, her loose hair framing a bloody gash on her forehead.

"You're hurt." He crawled to her and reached to wipe at the cut, but she slapped his hand away with a scowl.

"Don't touch me!" Sitting on her heels, she pushed her hair back in order to glare at him. "You dragged me into this mess, but _now _you care if I'm hurt?"

"Do you seriously want to have this argument here?" Hikoshu's nerves still crackled, stealing any patience he might have had otherwise.

"Well, you've pretty much guaranteed this is the safest place for it." She spat on the floor as blood from the wound ran into her mouth. "Why won't you, just once, let things go? Why do you always have to fight?"

"Why won't _you_, just once, let me save you from something without berating me for doing it?"

"You aren't doing this for me, Hikoshu, you're doing this for—"

"For myself, yes, you've told me. You have a hard time accepting that maybe I care what happens to you."

"Oh, please. Two weeks ago, you were declaring how you never wanted to see me—"

Hikoshu groaned loudly over her. "Good spirits, Yan-lin!" He then grabbed her cheeks in both hands so suddenly that she flinched. With a firm grip, he held her head still so that he could give her his full glare. "I care about you. I—care—about you. Believe me, I'm not bleeding in the middle of this room for my health or sanity."

Yan-lin stared back, her wide eyes framed by the trickle of blood which was now mingling with his on her cheek. But she said nothing, and the tense exchange of looks was only interrupted by a whimper. They both turned their gazes further into the room, where a woman holding a toddler huddled in the corner. She watched them in tearful horror and no small amount of confusion, surrounded by the fragmented ruins of her home. The child, the one who whimpered, cowered under her arms.

"Ah…" Hikoshu immediately dropped Yan-lin's face, fighting back chagrin. "I am _so _sorry." He fumbled for the coin purse in his pocket.

Yan-lin looked to the window at the sound of voices in the alleyway. "We have to go." She got to her feet, pulling him up as he freed the pouch from his robe. "Forget the money and come on." Around them, the building shook. Hikoshu barely had time to drop the purse in front of the woman before Yan-lin led him out of the room.

"We can't go out the front door," she said, assuming control once more. "You'll have to bend us out one of these windows."

"I'm not jumping out of a window," Hikoshu objected, and the look she shot him was scathing.

"We went in one, we can go out of one." She darted past the central stairwell and turned down one of the other three corridors. At the end of the hallway was what she was searching for—an unshuttered window, framed on both sides by stiff armadillo-bear statues resting on their haunches.

"You don't understand, going up is a lot easier than going down."

"You've got to be kidding me. You're still afraid of heights?" She dropped his hand as they reached the window, allowing him to squirm away while she assessed the scene outside.

"I'm not afraid. I'm just very—" Hikoshu quailed as she grabbed his shoulder and shoved him against the pane. Far, far below them, a cow-hog rifled through half-frozen rubbish. "Yes, I'm afraid. I'm not jumping."

"Hikoshu, you got me into this—"

"We can take the stairs."

"They'll be expecting us. And if we wait any longer, they'll have us cornered here, too." As if to support her dire words, the building shook once more. Yan-lin stared at him pointedly.

Crumbling under her perturbed frown, Hikoshu blew out his breath. "Fine. Hold on to my neck." Then, gathering his courage as well as Yan-lin, he climbed very reluctantly onto the shallow window ledge. The world swayed and his legs trembled, and he clung to the eerily-smooth stone of the precipice. Just beyond his feet, the alley danced in doubles, causing his stomach to churn with nausea.

"Go now," Yan-lin ordered, and Hikoshu wondered if she understood how relative 'now' could be when a man was peering into the face of his own demise. He swallowed, he steeled himself, then he adjusted his legs and steeled himself again. And then, he set his foot—

"Wait!" she hissed, and Hikoshu nearly fell backwards in his retreat. "They're coming down the alley now." Hikoshu couldn't look, but he could hear the men's voices reverberating on the wall of the building across from them.

"So we don't have to jump?"

"We're cornered," she whispered, frustrated. "We waited too long."

Relief mixed with worry. "What do we do then?"

Yan-lin moaned quietly beside his throat and dropped her head against his ear. "I don't know, I don't know…"

But they couldn't just give up—not after what he'd done to get to this point. He had created this problem, so he was going to have to solve it. Fixing his eyes on the roof of the building across from them, Hikoshu braced himself. "Hold tight and keep quiet."

"Why? What—" she gave a squeak of surprise as he leapt from the window ledge.

They flew at the roof so fast from his airbending that he barely had time to waterbend the tiles free of snow before they landed. The landing itself was hard, and Hikoshu almost lost Yan-lin in his desperate scrabble for a handhold. Luckily, his fingers caught the edge of the ceramic tiles in a death-grip, and Yan-lin's did the same just above his head. They both waited there for an anxious moment before daring to breathe. It took another moment for Hikoshu to force his petrified muscles into starting the agonizing crawl toward the roof's ridge.

"If we stay quiet and stick to the roofs," he whispered, "we might get out of here without being seen."

Beside his head, she nodded. "Why didn't you warn me first?"

"What part of 'stay quiet' did you not under—" In an attempt to lodge a toe under the edge of the tiles, his foot accidentally dislodged a tile instead. It slipped and clattered down the slope of the roof. Hikoshu listened, horrified, as it struck the pavement below. Then there was no staying quiet or being deliberate. Hikoshu clambered up the roof side.

As soon as he reached the ridge, Hikoshu pushed himself to his feet. Again, the world took on the motion of a storm-tossed ship, the mountainous vista a blur of gray, but he disregarded it in his panic. Yan-lin, in her own panic, tightened her hold on his shoulders until he thought she might choke him. "I'm going to make a run for the other roof," he explained, preparing her, "then I'll jump."

"Alright."

"Ready?" He took three rapid steps down the opposite side, but on the fourth, his foot caught on the tiles. Hikoshu cried out as he fell forward, and Yan-lin shrieked even more loudly as she flew over his head. He grabbed her arm at the last second with his injured hand, and she landed soundly against the roof just below him, the wind knocked out of her.

But Hikoshu didn't slide, as he half expected he would. Looking up toward the ridge, he saw his foot was encased in tile. One of the soldiers had trapped him. Grunting, he glanced back to Yan-lin, whose feet dangled past the eave. The upside-down vantage point—the sky at his heels and a barely visible road now above his head—disoriented him enough that he was forced to close his eyes briefly. "Here, give me your other hand."

Yan-lin was in shock, barely registering his request, but eventually her fingers brushed against his. Instead of taking her hand, however, he bended a snowball from a nearby chimney drift and mashed it against her knuckles, pinning her palm to the roof. Yan-lin cried out in pain as he froze her hand in place.

"What are you doing?"

"You have to let go."

"What?" she uttered, horrorstricken, and clung even tighter to his injured hand.

"I'm trapped and I can't get free while holding you. If you let go, I can break—"

"I'm not letting go of you!"

"Yan-lin." He tried hard to hold her terror-filled eyes—tried to communicate strength and encouragement, even as his mind quavered at the thought of them both tumbling to their deaths. "You have to trust me. I won't let you fall."

Yan-lin obviously had no inclination to trust him, but something must have come across in his gaze. Or perhaps she was remembering his declaration in the half-destroyed room. Or perhaps she realized how close he was to vomiting from the vertigo. Whatever the case, her eyes softened, her fear dissolved to some degree, and she nodded. "Don't let me fall." Then she let go.

Hikoshu didn't wait to see if the ice-pin had held. Twisting until he thought his ankle might snap, he hauled himself up at the waist and slammed a flame-wreathed fist against the offending tile. It cracked, nearly cracking bone with it, but the move gave him just enough time to find a handhold before it broke completely. "Yan-lin!"

The pin had worked; Yan-lin still hung from the roof just below him, her hand encased in ice. Her face was warped in a horrible expression of almost feral panic. "This isn't going to hold!"

"Wait, I'm coming down." He started to slide toward her, and barely missed a stone to the head as a result. Stunned, he looked back to the spine of the roof, where the helmet of an Omashu guard was just emerging from the other side.

Yan-lin shouted for him as he started back up the roof, but he ignored her in favor of this new threat. Instead, he took the offensive by throwing his fist into the guard's gut, using airbending to give him balance while the guard still struggled to find his. The young man coughed and swung at him, which he easily deflected with his injured hand. Then he took out the guard's precarious stability by grasping his wrist and twisting. The guard slid sideways in the direction of his arm and hit the roof on his back. Hikoshu immediately froze his hand to the tiles just as he'd done with Yan-lin.

As he straightened, two more soldiers appeared, jumping onto the roof from raised stone platforms. He leveled an air blast at one, which tossed the man back through the window he and Yan-lin had jumped from, and ducked a running attack from the other. The remaining guard regained his stance fast enough to block Hikoshu's thrust, but earthbending moves were poorly suited for rooftop battles. The soldier simply couldn't root himself well enough to dodge a side kick to the chest, and as the guard fell, Hikoshu dove forward to catch him by the ankle. This he froze to the roof, as well, and started toward the other side of the roof for Yan-lin.

The impact of an earthbender hitting the roof shook every tile, enough to steal Hikoshu's balance and send him into a fit of until-then-ignored vertigo. On the opposite slope, Yan-lin shrieked in terror.

Hikoshu recovered and threw one of the snow drifts at the earthbender, though it hit harmlessly on his shoulder. The soldier paid no attention, controlling his bare feet with tiles. This new man was formidable, twice the size of either of the two guards still pinned to the roof, and the gold studs on his uniform denoted a person of higher rank. Hikoshu wheeled back on one foot to throw air at the man, but before he could, the man exploited his poor stance and once more slammed his heel into the roof. The resultant quake shook the building, forcing Hikoshu to his hands and knees. On the other side of the ridge, Yan-lin's shriek became high-pitched. Alarmed.

"Yan-lin!" Hikoshu forgot about the man immediately and dove across the ridge. The ice had shattered; he arrived just in time to see her hand disappear beyond the eave. Without thinking, he threw himself off the roof headfirst.

Plunging like a dragon-hawk, Hikoshu used just enough bending to catch Yan-lin in the air. He covered her in his body to protect her from their inevitable landing, and only belatedly did he think to soften it with airbending. Throwing out a hand to stop the ground, he encountered vegetables instead.

They hit hard, his vision and mouth filling with leafy cabbage. He heard the wagon bed snap under them, and a very upset Earth Kingdom man shouting profanities. Dazed, Hikoshu allowed himself to lie in the cabbage as thoughts crashed in on him. Fighting on a roof. Falling from a roof. He was going to be sick.

Yan-lin had recovered before him, and she tugged at his hand hurriedly. "Get up!" Hikoshu started to, but just as soon as he sat up, something caught him in the back, tossing him from the destroyed cart.

He hadn't regrouped well enough to fight this new threat; he needed a few moments even to register that a rock band was now wrapped around his chest, pinning his arms to his side as he rolled onto his back. From above, bits of broken tile showered him, and Yan-lin quickly sheltered him with her own body, her blood-matted face full of resolve and lingering fear.

"Leave him alone!" she commanded, her tone brooking no argument. "Lieutenant Tin, call off your men! You're attacking the Avatar."

Hikoshu let his head fall to the side, giving him an eyeful of dirty toes. Those toes looked familiar, and he followed the leather greaves up to the gold-studded man from the roof. Lieutenant Tin, he supposed, with all of his gold insignia sewn into his leather cuirass. He was missing the green coat and salakot of the other soldiers, but he didn't seem to notice the snow that clung to his plaited beard. His eyes were locked solely on Hikoshu.

"I didn't imagine the Avatar would be so easily captured."

Hikoshu struggled to a sitting position, despite Yan-lin's insistence he stay down. "It's interesting that you think I'm captured. As far as I'm concerned, I'm just showing remarkable restraint."

Tin's eyebrows shot up at that. "You seem awfully confident for a man wrapped in stone."

"Well, I admit, it is an annoying inconvenience," Hikoshu said wearily, wishing he could wipe his mouth. Yan-lin must have slammed her head into his when they landed, as his nose throbbed and blood was bubbling with his words. "But I should have it off before I'm finished with most of those men behind you."

At the mouth of the alley and just beyond the destroyed cabbage cart, seven Omashu guardsmen stood at attention. Well-trained soldiers, they didn't betray any hint of disbelief or offense at his claim. The lieutenant, however, expressed their incredulity for them. "If you're trying to tempt my men into fighting you, you'll be sorely disappointed."

Hikoshu sighed, then airbended himself to a stand. Immediately, Yan-lin clutched his immobile arm as if to support him. "Believe me when I say I don't desire a fight. But I'm not going to let you take the lady without one."

"So be it." Lieutenant Tin raised his hand, signaling the soldiers behind him. In unison, they fell into an identical bending stance, and with a gasp, Yan-lin placed her body between them and Hikoshu.

"Lieutenant, don't do this!" she pleaded. "I'll come with you peacefully, but don't hurt him." The response took Hikoshu aback. She was trying to protect him? He had just assumed she hadn't wanted him to hurt the soldiers. Apparently, though, it was the exact opposite.

Unfortunately, Tin didn't look swayed, his hand still in the air. Surely he didn't plan to go through her. And yet Yan-lin didn't move, her feet planted in an almost earthbender-like stance. It compelled Hikoshu to interrupt before things escalated out of his control. "You know, I'm bleeding enough for one day. Instead of fighting—which would likely have only two outcomes, neither of which I'm thrilled about—why don't we compromise?"

Tin's hand faltered. "Your suggestion for a compromise, then?"

"If you're still intent on taking the lady into custody, I ask that you take me into custody, too."

"Fair enough. I would've done it anyway."

"Yes, but this way, I'm letting you keep your legs."

Lieutenant Tin stared for a moment, then gave a deep, throaty laugh and signaled for his men to stand down. "I imagine your bluster is at least half-show, but it's a show I'm enjoying nonetheless. Come, we'll take you both to the garrison and get you cleaned up. Then we can figure out just how much of this 'Avatar' business is actually true."

It wasn't the solution he'd hoped for, but Hikoshu now saw the benefit in surrendering. It gave him time to think, which he desperately needed at the moment, and kept them both safe at least for now. And in the end, if they couldn't sneak out of Tin's custody, he could still fight his way. There would be opportunities, and with a little rest, Hikoshu would be able to exploit them.

Yet he could barely muster the energy to be optimistic. Perhaps he was just too worn out. Perhaps he was too occupied by how much every part of him hurt. But part of him suspected it was because of the way Yan-lin refused to meet his eyes.

* * *

**A/N: **Long overdue, but I'm trying not to give up. Work, of course, is always insane, and my father - whose diagnosis of cancer last July really started the downward spiral of never updating - well, he passed away last month. Not to mention that I edited this chapter, lost the work during a computer crash, re-edited this chapter, decided it didn't have enough plot points and rewrote it entirely from the ground up, decided that I didn't like the rewrite and trashed it in favor of editing the chapter a third time, decided that despite the length, it really needed its opening scene and re-re-re-re-edited the chapter, and somewhere in there (around major overhaul number 5), I frankly lost track of what I was doing. Such that I really wasn't sure if this would ever get posted.

But it's posted now. 3,000 words over budget and with far less plot substance than I ever wanted. C'est la vie.


	26. Ch 25: Beacons

**Chapter 25 - Beacons**

* * *

"That's an interesting move," Lieutenant Tin said with a frown, his bearded chin pinched between his finger and thumb. Hikoshu didn't think it was an interesting move at all, and so he dismissed the comment as a mental tactic.

Which was half the game of pai sho, a game they now played and had been playing for several hours, the portable board spread out on the table between them. Admittedly, Hikoshu could think of more productive things to be doing, such as leaving Gangzhou and getting on with his mission. But Tin had insisted they wait for his captain, who would be back at 'any moment,' and as Hikoshu was unlikely to talk a subordinate into letting Yan-lin go, he bided his time. So the hours stretched on while they played board games, Yan-lin observing them from a chair set between the two sides. She looked positively bored, her head resting on her folded arms, but she said nothing as she watched.

"You mean the wheel formation? I don't usually use feather tiles."

"They're called flame tiles here." The lieutenant's eyes didn't leave the board, one finger hesitantly sliding a lotus tile to a new spot. "You're trying to get me to open my house."

Actually, he was just putting tiles down, but he could see what the lieutenant meant. Kind of. In reality, Hikoshu wasn't playing a good game. Tin was just playing an extraordinarily bad one. So he shrugged and slid a feather tile out of formation. Which, of course, sent the lieutenant into a fit of introspection as he considered what this erratic move could possibly mean.

Yan-lin adjusted her arms on the table and resettled her head, half-lidded eyes following the pieces. "Just challenge the wheel with your red lotus right of center. His formation's weak, anyway." There was thinly-veiled frustration in her voice. Tin looked up in surprise, as did Hikoshu. It was the first words she'd spoken in an hour, and the first comment she'd made on the game. Glancing back at the board, Tin moved to do just that.

"He can't challenge right-center," Hikoshu interrupted, propping his chin in his hand, and Tin hesitated. "I've broken line. He'll set himself up for a pin."

"But he can escape the pin when you move your wheel tile to compensate for his east star progress."

Well…yes. Though Tin certainly couldn't recognize that, given how poorly he was playing. It surprised Hikoshu, instead, that Yan-lin had. That move was at least four steps ahead. Frowning, he focused on the board, his attention finally caught up by the game.

"If I maintain the pin and don't defend the east star, I'll still dominate the center house without losing any tiles," he countered, and Yan-lin raised her head an inch above her arms.

"If you don't defend the east star, he'll have five lotus tiles in six moves and seize half the board. You'll be two moves away from only dead corners, and three moves away from your first pass."

Hikoshu struggled not to gape. That was fifteen moves ahead. There was no way she could actually read all of that. "You're bluffing to force me to move my wheel tile."

Her expression was blank. "I'm not even playing." Then with a sigh, she turned away to gaze at the walls.

The garrison—or headquarters, or whatever the soldiers called this building—wasn't meant to be lived in. It functioned solely as a work space while the Omashu guard lived nearby. Yet for all the officiality of the building, there was nothing official about this particular room. Lieutenant Tin had first insisted on one of the more luxurious commandant's offices, but Yan-lin had in turn insisted on the barest space they had available. So now they played in a half-empty room on the third floor, sitting on three stools that had begun to rot from disuse. There was a fourth chair with a broken back tucked under a solitary window. Between the latticework, the sky looked dark.

Tin decided to believe Yan-lin over him and moved his lotus tile. Absently, Hikoshu responded with another one.

"Are you sure the captain will make it despite the snow?" Yan-lin asked, and Tin shrugged, his eyes glued to the board. She'd asked that question five times already, anyhow.

"If he doesn't, we can always set you up in this room. I'm sorry if it's not to your liking, Your Eminence." He glanced up in apology. Well, the other option was sleeping outside in the snow, so it sounded pretty good to Hikoshu. The task of proving he was the Avatar had been painless—quite literally, as by the time Hikoshu finished healing most of his and Yan-lin's wounds, half of the barracks had been on their knees in supplication. Then everything he'd done wrong, from resisting arrest to destroying a few homes, was completely forgiven. These were the kind of perks that came with being the holiest man in four countries, though it did nothing to relieve his guilty conscience. So he swore multiple times that he would make reparations. At some point.

"You should just leave." Yan-lin was speaking to Hikoshu, of course. It was yet another comment she'd made at least five times, and he barely looked at her while they played.

"I'm going to speak to the captain."

"You don't have time to waste here."

"Well, either I waste time here or I waste time there. At least here, I've got something to do."

Tin had no idea what they were talking about, but he didn't meddle, either. Just the occasional curious frown, which he gave them between his amazingly bad plays. Yan-lin made a disgusted noise in her throat and went back to her idle study of the empty room while Hikoshu went back to his game. Which was, to his amazement, playing out exactly as she said it would.

They sat in silence again, only broken by an unhappy grunt from Hikoshu when he lost his center position. Outside the window, a breeze pulled at the wooden slats, and the stone creaked with the encroaching night. Inside, the room was warm, comfortable despite the lack of a fire. It might have been the floors, which were made of a stone that seemed to channel heat, combined with the new clothes they'd been given. Out of pure convenience, Hikoshu now wore a soldier's uniform, complete with toasty boots and a plush green surcoat that he suspected once belonged to someone a little higher ranked than private.

Yan-lin hadn't faired quite as well; the lieutenant's wife, after hearing that Yan-lin was wearing robes meant for a man twice her size, had generously donated a silk set that was likely out of style by about ten years. The dress itself showed far too much cleavage for the frigid weather—which really was any cleavage at all—and Hikoshu was certain he wouldn't have been able to find her arms in those ridiculous sleeves even if he tried. But she'd accepted it graciously, and with a little effort, she now looked like a prim and proper courtly lady, which inspired in him an odd feeling of distaste.

At one point, after Hikoshu had called forfeit on the last game and agreed to play another, Yan-lin glanced sharply at the window. Rubbing her arms through the thick sleeves, she sat back on the stool. "Lieutenant Tin, do you think you could open the window? It's getting stuffy in here." Well, with the window open, it was going to get cold in there, but Hikoshu didn't complain. He was more tolerant of heat and 'stuffiness' than most people, so it had likely become uncomfortable without him noticing.

Arching his eyebrows, Tin nodded and got to his feet. He unlocked the lattice and pushed the slats open, which immediately filled the room with an icy chill. The wind, however, was devoid of snowflakes, and Tin nodded in satisfaction. "Now if he got past the Bird's Beak turnoff before dark, I imagine the captain will be here at any time." The lieutenant had been saying that for hours. But perhaps believing it this time—or perhaps a little cold from the now-open window—he turned back into the room and scooted in his stool. "I'll go check on dinner while I'm up." He clasped his hands and gave Hikoshu a deep bow, then ducked his head to Yan-lin. Hikoshu, suppressing a shiver, watched him go.

Yan-lin waited for the door to shut before she spoke. "You can leave now, you know."

"I can leave any time I wish." Suspecting the game was done for a while, Hikoshu began to clean off the board. "Until I can leave with you, though, I probably won't."

"Of all the stubborn-headed, impossibly dense—"

"Did you ask him to open the window just so I could escape? Because if that's the case, it's freezing and I want to close it." Yan-lin stared at him coldly, thin-lipped, and in resignation, Hikoshu got up to retrieve Tin's abandoned coat from the broken chair.

"You know how selfish this is," she said behind him. "You're the Avatar. People are dying, but you won't act because you're hung up on saving me."

The comment hit home, far too close to the truth, and Hikoshu's hands tightened on the coat as guilt and simultaneous anger flooded him. His primal reaction was to lash out at her for trying to hurt him, but better sense regained control, and he saw the attempt for what it was.

Shrugging on Tin's coat, Hikoshu turned to face her. His expression was stony. "Don't manipulate me. You can do it to the rest of the world, but you won't do it to me."

Hikoshu knew how scary he looked when he was mad. So he wasn't surprised at Yan-lin's sudden timidity, or how she shrank away as if afraid he might hurt her. It still stung, though, dispelling any remaining ire, and he slunk back to the table. "I know you don't understand. I can't say if I even understand it myself. But right now, you're the only thing I have, and for some reason, I suspect I'm all you have, too." He took a seat in Tin's former chair and clasped the part of her sleeve where he thought her hand might be. Taken aback, she almost pulled away. "For whatever reason, we're in this together. You can choose to be my friend or enemy, but it doesn't change the fact I can't make it without you. And I'm not going to stop fighting, no matter how many stones you feel you need to throw at me."

Another one of their silences ensued—the kind of silence where Yan-lin would study him, and he would have to try to guess what she was thinking. But this time, he didn't feel completely clueless. She refrained from sharing her thoughts, but in her eyes, a wall was finally breaking down.

Pain cracked through his head, turning his vision blurry, as something slammed into the back of his neck. Yan-lin gave a startled cry and jumped to her feet as Hikoshu groaned and fell forward, his torso collapsing against the table. Spots danced in front of his eyes and he held himself up on his hands, fighting to gather his wits, while Yan-lin threw herself behind him to shield him from the invisible assailant.

They had to get to cover. On the floor beside his feet lay the offending rock, and though no others had followed it, Hikoshu couldn't imagine the attack was finished. Grabbing at Yan-lin's arm, he tried to pull her under the table.

Yan-lin wrestled free as she breathily shouted, "Diem!"

The name didn't register at first, and so Hikoshu stared dumbly as Yan-lin deserted him to run to the window instead. Just beyond the wood slats, a shadowy figure hovered in the darkness. When she reached the frame, the figure stuck his head forward to reveal the jovial sandbender, his grin a contrite one.

"Sorry about that."

Hikoshu pressed a hand cautiously against the rock-inflicted wound. There wasn't any blood, but it would definitely bruise and swell. "You earthbended a rock at me?"

"What?" Diem blinked. "No, I just threw it. And you looked like a soldier. How was I supposed to know differently?" He glanced to Yan-lin, who was trying to pull him through the window. "Hold off on that, mud pie. I'm here to rescue you, so no point in coming inside."

"How did you know where to find us?" Yan-lin was beaming, which for some reason filled him with nausea. Or perhaps that was the headache.

"After the Avatar destroyed half of Inoue Square? Believe me, it wasn't much to track you down."

"I didn't destroy the plaza." Hikoshu finally managed to stand up, still grasping his neck, which throbbed heatedly under his fingers. "The soldiers did that. I only destroyed a couple of buildings."

Diem shrugged. "Same difference. So let's go before the soldiers get back."

"We can't. Yan-lin wants to—"

"Sure, help me outside." Yan-lin held out her hand, and much to Hikoshu's shock, Diem supported her as she climbed through the window. Speechless, he followed her to the pane, where in the darkness, he could see the silhouette of the earth pedestal Diem had bended. Yan-lin now crouched on it, situating herself as Diem reached out to Hikoshu.

Still stunned, he automatically accepted Diem's help, and only realized his mistake after Diem hauled him out onto the stone base. Scrambling, he bit back a yelp as he dropped onto his knees, and before he could beg Diem to take it easy on the descent, the stone pedestal shot downward.

When they hit the snow below, both Yan-lin and Diem were already on their feet, but Hikoshu remained kneeling, his hands clutching his thighs while he struggled to regain his bearings. Realizing that he was still on the ground, Diem jerked him to a stand then dusted the snow off of his coat.

"Rest when we've got a bridge behind us."

Streetlamps and moonlight, reflecting off the shallow layer of snow, helped to guide their way as they snuck through alleys and down wider roads. The headquarters was positioned on the outer edge of the town, not too far from the East Bridge, such that Diem had been able to conveniently smuggle the ostrich-horses close by. When they reached the two birds, tied to the hitching posts of a currently closed shop, Ben-Pao croaked out a greeting that seemed to split the quiet night.

"You even found our horstrich?" Yan-lin asked in delight, cradling the animal's head between her palms.

Diem grabbed hold of the saddle horn and hefted himself onto his own ostrich-horse's back. "Again, not much to it. Just did a quick run through Chinh's stable." Yan-lin spared him a look of warmth, then undid Ben-Pao's tie. Yet before she pulled herself into the saddle, she turned expectantly to Hikoshu.

He still stood several paces away. "We can't leave."

"We can if we hurry." Diem reined in his mount, urging the bird toward the bridge.

"I told the guardsmen we'd wait to speak to the captain."

The comment took Diem by surprise, and he looked to Yan-lin as if doubting he'd heard him right. Yan-lin, on the other hand, was staring at Hikoshu, her expression once more ambiguous. Quietly, she handed Diem her reins, then approached him.

"Why are you doing this?" she whispered, so low that he had to tilt his head just to hear.

"Why are _you_ doing this?" he countered. "Why the sudden change of heart?" Yan-lin didn't look affronted by the question, or even surprised. In fact, she almost seemed to expect it.

"I don't know, Hikoshu. I wish I could tell you, but I can't. The nursemaids used to say that the Avatar could command obedience with just the sound of his voice. And maybe that's true. Or maybe I just want to believe you." She then took his hand, her thin, frozen fingers entwining through his. "We're in this together, right? Then let's leave together before I realize how crazy all of this sounds."

The fact that Gangzhou did not close its bridges at night was a blessing, and perhaps with the benefit of the soldier's uniform Hikoshu now wore, none of the town watch seemed to suspect them leaving the city. They flew through the late night snow drifts, and without any molestation plunged into the trees of Songsi Mountain. Immediately, the street lamps dimmed into a distant glow, and now the moon took over as their only light, its snowy reflection broken by pine branches and roots. Diem didn't slow their pace, intent to put as much distance between them and Gangzhou as he could before the guard caught on that their prisoners were missing.

At first, Hikoshu feared the pitfalls in the road, hidden under a day's worth of snowfall, but quickly he realized that the ostrich-horses were actually staying on top of the snow. The fleet-footed birds moved like air bison, no step heavy enough to break through the uppermost layer, and the shallow clawprints they left behind seemed out of proportion to their size.

"Can you cover our tracks?" Yan-lin said after a long, tense silence. She spoke in a loud whisper, her words almost wiped away by the stinging wind. Pushing away his former doubts, Hikoshu leaned back precariously, and the gait of the ostrich-horse nearly rocked him loose. With a half-terrified grip on Yan-lin's waist, he threw a heavy gust of wind behind them to blow the top layer of snow awry along the trail. When the powdery flurries finally settled, there would be no tracks left.

Again, they settled into silence. This stretched for several hours, as Diem focused on getting them safely up a dark trail and Hikoshu focused on not falling off while he hid their tracks. Because of that, time flew quickly, and they were halfway up the mountain when Diem felt it was safe enough to leave the trail. As there was no path, he had to dismount to lead his ostrich-horse through the tree thicket, forcing Yan-lin and Hikoshu to do the same. They walked for some time more before one side of the mountain fell away, revealing a panorama over an inky mountain lake. Ripples caught the moonlight, and sheltering pines bordered its narrow shore.

Diem soon broke away from this as well, and took them further into the woods, not stopping until the trees had become thick enough that no one would see them unless actually tripping over their sleeping bodies. Only then did he feel at liberty to hitch up the animals and remove their tack. Assigned the job of knocking snow from tree limbs to hide their steps, Hikoshu had lagged behind both him and Yan-lin. By the time he caught up, Diem had already dug out enough raw earth to bend them a shelter. Hikoshu obligingly hid it with more snow, which created a structure that resembled a misshapen hill to an untrained eye and a disfigured South Pole ice hut to his own. Unfortunately, the interior wasn't nearly as warm, especially since Hikoshu wasn't allowed to start a fire, and so they huddled deep in their coats—Yan-lin wearing the one Hikoshu had unintentionally borrowed from Tin—while listening closely for sounds of a hunt.

The wearying exhaustion of the battle earlier, combined with their frantic escape, was too much even for his anxiety, and soon Hikoshu started to drift off, his back propped against one of the stone walls, his arms half-numb. On the bare edge of consciousness, he finally heard Yan-lin speak, though it was hardly more than a whisper.

"Why did you come back?"

Diem's voice was just as soft. "I got to thinking, and I realized I couldn't leave you out here like this. What if you got in trouble? How could I live with myself?"

"I'm glad you did."

He gave a gentle 'humph' of agreement.

"What about your shop? The stable?" Yan-lin continued, and Hikoshu could almost feel Diem's shrug.

"I make these trips on occasion for good brass. True, Huan usually gets a little more forewarning, but he needs me bad enough to forgive this small omission."

"How long will you stay with us then?"

"Far as I can. You know what'll happen if the Wusun catch me back in the desert."

"I know," Yan-lin said quickly, almost guilty. "The tribes have long memories."

Diem chuckled. "And they don't forgive, not even if you're helping the Avatar save the world."

"Do you ever regret leaving the Si Wong?"

"You mean if I ever regret what I did? That'd be regretting who I am, and no, mud pie, I don't. I take pride in the person I became since I left the desert. I don't need my _taousit,_ or any of the _tiousatin, _to tell me what I'm worth."

He must have inspired Yan-lin with an idea, for she slipped into a lilting, foreign language which Hikoshu couldn't have discerned even if he was less than half asleep. Diem seemed to understand, however, and laughed softly.

"Maybe someday. But not this time. You given it any thought yourself?"

"No," she said simply, a hint of finality in her voice. Diem hummed.

"His Majesty must want you both real bad."

"His Majesty doesn't like to lose."

"I'll bet. Now mind telling me why he's even after you? From the rumors I was hearing in town, I don't think it's got as much to do with the Avatar as you're letting on."

Yan-lin sighed. "Hikoshu and His Majesty were at odds with each other, so he decided to make a stand against the king by taking me away from Omashu."

A moment of quiet passed. "Hikoshu must care a lot about you."

"Hikoshu cares about causes. It's who he is—the Avatar and his strict moral compass."

Diem didn't answer, and a longer silence followed before he spoke again. "So how about after this?"

"After what?"

"Everything," he responded flatly. "When you're done here, and you got no more libraries to chase."

"I don't know," she mumbled. "I imagine I'll go back to Omashu."

"Could just stick with the Avatar. Might be exciting."

"No." There was a note of sadness in her voice. "I've been there before. And it ends badly."

Hikoshu had had his fill of the conversation. He filtered out the rest of it, and let his mind fall away. Sleep engulfed him as the same memories that were obviously troubling Yan-lin followed him across dreams.

**xXxXx**

The snow crunched loudly under her feet, but she ran too fast to notice. Running, so numb that the wind no longer stung her eyes. So numb, that she didn't feel the tears now frozen to her cheeks. Crying, because they were all gone, and she lived. Fire behind her, like a desperate, hungry beast, threw up sparks long after the screams had died, and now only sobs filled the night. Her sobs, accompanied by the howls of polar bear dogs.

Dogs who had her scent.

She plunged into the lake and the water enveloped her. It was like a bad dream, her coat trying to strangle her. Then, amidst the cold and the pain and the sadness and the fear, there was silence. Pure silence, her thoughts as pristine as the ice above her head. She floated, and the shadows caressed her. She held against the ice, hidden, and the wolf-men did not see how she breathed between their feet. _Hold still. Hold still. _They passed by, silent silhouettes. In front of her face, a slender feather drifted away from her hair, followed by a little dhole charm from around her neck. A wooden figurine her husband had carved, her daughter had intended to wear.

Her strength failed. She sank into grief, into the abyss.

**Xx**

The eye that peered into hers was not human. It held no emotion, not even curiosity, the worm-like body it belonged to writhing above her own. She didn't know where she was, but she sensed that she was no longer human, either. The haze surrounding them was the color of rancid oil, and thick, slimy foam floated around her head as she bobbed on a lake surface.

The creature understood. It understood, though it had no mouth with which to speak. This was a mistake—a fortuitous mistake—that they found each other, by the wood of the Spirit Oasis grove in her little dhole pendant. It knew what she wanted, even though she didn't know herself. It would give her what she wanted.

What she wanted more than rebirth.

Revenge.

All it asked for were the emotions now drowning her, and the bargain seemed trifling. She would give it her grief, because she no longer wanted it. She would give it her love, because she no longer needed it. In exchange for the power to act, she handed over the power to feel. She gave the creature her humanity.

The eye blinked. The spirit smiled. And she had no mouth with which to scream.

**Xx**

They deserved it. They all deserved it. Death by their own hands, though they didn't realize it was their own deaths they caused. The wolf-men murdered, and so it murdered them. It felt no remorse. It felt no revenge. It simply returned what was given. The wolf-men died by flames, by spear—however they dealt those final blows, those final blows were what they suffered in turn. It did not torture unless the wolf-man tortured. It did not spare lives unless the wolf-man did the same. It came for them, and they ran. But none escaped.

Then there was no more pain to answer. The wolf-men were gone, the centuries had passed. Yet it did not feel peace, because it could no longer feel. It waited, and it hunted, and it slept when there were no screams. But then the screams would start again, and it would emerge from the lake. From the snow.

It came for them, and they ran. But none escaped.

**xXxXx**

Hikoshu was underwater. The realization left him stupefied, such that he believed for several moments that he was still only dreaming, entombed once again in the tormented spirit's lake-scene nightmare. The frigid water robbed him of sensation, deafening sound, and everything was so eerily black that he had no context to differentiate between reality and fantasy. Only when his throat clenched in pain, reflexively making him inhale, did he realize this was no longer a dream.

Choking on water, Hikoshu stuck his hands out for something solid and encountered resistance. He pushed hard against it and felt it fight back. Immediately his thoughts flew to the spirit. An almost feral panic set in, lending strength to his numb arms as he grappled with the other creature. Yet all of his swings fell wide of their mark, as blind as he was, and with the turbulence kicked up in his chaotic defense, he quickly lost his opponent in the black. The struggle instead exhausted his remaining reserves, and his desperation turned toward escape from the water rather than from his captor.

A flash of blue light interrupted him, illuminating faint motes floating several inches from his face. Startled, Hikoshu momentarily forgot his original goal, his eyes drawn downward to the source of light as it flashed once more. Far below him, in the murky abyss, a tube-shaped plant with feathered leaves lit up in a blaze of silvery blue, only to burn out a moment later. Yet before the darkness settled, a similar plant nearby came alive with the same brilliant color.

Like frenzied lightning, the strange plants continued to give bursts of light along the lake bed as Hikoshu now swiveled to face his opponent. She had floated several feet away from him, her arms spread out to either side, half-loose sleeves fanning beside her body. Her hair formed a plume around her face, which—highlighted in the brief flashes—was set in perfect stillness. She looked like a spirit, existing in this world only for the moments that the plants sparked into life, disappearing with the darkness whenever the light ceased. And had Hikoshu been any less experienced with spirits, he was certain the sight would have scared him enough to drown him. But while terror did threaten to draw the Avatar State somewhere toward the edge of his mind, Hikoshu was rational enough to recognize the woman was no spirit.

He floundered the last few feet toward Yan-lin and pulled her into his arms. She moved easily, offering no resistance. Her entire body was limp. Hugging her to him, Hikoshu spun the water around them, his bending made awkward by his dwindling strength and increasing numbness, his limbs unable to fight the resistance of the very water he was manipulating. Yet his desperation made up for what his muscles lacked, and the waterspout that now surrounded them lifted them both out of the lake.

Below them, the lake continued to light up with occasional bursts of blue as they sped over the surface, carried by a cyclone of water. Hikoshu, however, only saw the shore. The snow-laced pine trees that lined it raced toward them, and he realized belatedly that they were moving too fast. The waterspout disintegrated as it hit the bank and slammed them both against the beach. Hurting from the rough landing, Hikoshu dragged Yan-lin's lifeless body a foot from the receding water, then slung her onto her back.

She was still unconscious, her mouth slightly agape, her hair tangling in twigs and shoreline debris. For some reason she was missing her coat, making her look even punier in the silly silk attire. Hikoshu held his hand still above her mouth, despite the strong shivers that racked him, and pulled the water from her lungs. The sensation roused her, making her gag, and she turned on her side to choke up more water.

"Take deep breaths," Hikoshu said, patting her back hard. His voice sounded muffled from the lake water clogging his ears, and his throat felt scratchy.

Yan-lin gasped into the dirt, her fingers gouging furrows near her face. "So cold," she whispered harshly. Her shoulders trembled both from the effort of coughing and the exposure. Dazed, Hikoshu straightened and looked out over the lake. It still lit up in bursts of frenzied blue, but the plants were starting to settle down. The remaining light disoriented him, giving an otherworldly quality to the forest that surrounded them. Above the trees loomed the mountain, outlined by stars. They were by the lake he'd glimpsed while making camp, though that did nothing to elaborate on why.

"Let's get back to the shelter." The cold would kill them if they didn't; already, his hair was freezing to the back of his neck. Hikoshu's innate ability to firebend was gone, stolen by the lake and leaving him with only two elements at his disposal. He used one of these now, bending the water from their sodden clothes and causing Yan-lin to shudder in pain as it sapped her of her remaining heat. He then bundled her in his soldier's surcoat and drew her arm across his shoulders. "What happened to your over-robe?"

"Dropped it so I could swim better." Yan-lin stuttered over the words, her free hand clutching the surcoat protectively to her breast. In the moonlight she looked washed out, with her lips drained of color and her eyes mere shadows. Hikoshu suspected that was only partly a trick of the lighting. "You were in the water."

"You can't swim."

Yan-lin didn't respond, and they started along the shore in silence, Hikoshu half-carrying her on his shoulder as he tried to find whatever trail had led them both here. Unfortunately, the dense woods just beyond the beach had protected most of the underbrush from snowfall as well as from the moon, such that he could barely see the detritus. Meanwhile, the thin layer of wool that guarded him from the wretched night no longer sufficed, and he had to work his knuckles to keep his grip on Yan-lin from giving. So cold were his feet, Hikoshu didn't even notice he was missing a boot until his toes caught on a rock and nearly sent them both face forward onto the pebbled bank.

Trying to ignore the pain, Hikoshu forced his mind toward a meditative state of singular focus. He kept the mountain peak in front of them, as he knew that somewhere on that black hillside was their camp. At the very least, he could walk toward that, even if he never found their original path.

"Why were you in the lake?" Yan-lin asked quietly after some time had passed. She'd struggled to keep up with him, her feet sometimes catching when she couldn't lift them over driftwood, and her weight had gradually shifted more onto him. Shaking off his self-imposed meditation, Hikoshu glanced at her and readjusted his hold on her arm and waist.

"I was hoping you could tell me."

"You weren't there when I woke up. Just a hole in the wall. I followed your footsteps to the lake." That was good; it meant there was a trail to find, and Hikoshu pressed onward.

"You were glowing in the water," she added after another pause, her hoarse voice almost a whisper. "I hate it when you glow."

Again Hikoshu looked at her askance, and noticed that her gaze was directed out on the lake. The strange water plants had calmed, and like a dying thunderstorm, only infrequent flashes of light pulsed from the center. But Yan-lin hardly seemed aware of that; her eyelids had drooped lower. Pausing, he hefted her entirely into his arms and almost fell backwards in the process. The cold had soaked through his knees, and he'd very nearly lost his sense of balance. Yan-lin's head fell to his shoulder, her body sagging against him.

"Recently I've been having dreams." Hikoshu didn't think she was listening, but he had to talk. The silence was too maddening, too morbid. "Nightmares. The spirit…whoever it is that's attacking the Water Tribes…I think her presence affects me on some level. Like an imbalance. I guess that's what Avatars are supposed to detect, right?" No answer. "When I dream, I keep reliving a part of her past, where she's drowning in a lake. The dream itself never changes, except this time. She's never touched me physically before. Never tried to drown me with her."

Yan-lin didn't respond, her hand resting on his chest as if she were simply feeling his voice. Hikoshu continued as he searched the underbrush. "Either she meant to do it, or she inadvertently dragged me into her nightmare. If it's the latter, then she must be getting more powerful. If it's the former, then she must be getting more desperate." With a rush of relief, he found the trail, their faint footsteps mixing mud and snow. The disturbed litter traced the outline of his boots emerging from the woods, and over them were Yan-lin's smaller steps. They were relatively untouched, but so inconspicuous that he wondered if some heightened Avatar-sense had helped him find them, rather than his own shrewdness. "I might need you to stand on your own, or these roots could possibly kill us both. Yan-lin?"

Again, she didn't answer, and this time Hikoshu was worried enough to set her down against a tree. Her head dropped to her chest, her arms once more limp. In growing anxiety, Hikoshu slapped her cheeks.

"Wake up. Stay with me."

She lifted her head just enough to give him a miserable frown from behind a curtain of hair. "I'm too tired."

"You can't go to sleep. Listen, I found the trail. If we get back to the camp, I can maybe light a fire."

"Light a fire now."

"I can't firebend. I'm not warm enough." The exposed parts of his hands and face had long ago stopped hurting, raising concern for frostbite. He imagined Yan-lin had fared no better, though he couldn't tell in the dark. "You're going to have to walk."

She shook her head, causing it to roll far too freely toward the tree, and Hikoshu seized her chin. "Come on, look at me. You know better than to sleep; you're too smart for that." Yan-lin barely raised her eyes to meet his, and though that look of cool calculation still lurked below the surface, it was significantly dulled. Hikoshu's pulse quickened, and his breaths became ragged, misty streaks of white. "Don't do this to me, Yan-lin. Not now. You've fought a lot worse than the cold, so don't let this be the thing that beats you. If you have some energy left, I need you to f—" His words were muffled as Yan-lin suddenly leaned forward to kiss him.

For a terrifying moment, he thought it was a kiss goodbye, and he clutched her shoulder to stop her. But she didn't break away, her delicate, frozen lips tenderly pressed against his. The gesture was strange, completely inappropriate for the situation, and yet nothing about it felt inappropriate. It almost felt natural, as if they could share an unspoken connection based solely on touches. There was a simple honesty in Yan-lin's kiss that entranced him, so different was it from the woman he'd come to hate. Without even realizing what he was doing, Hikoshu swayed into the kiss.

Only when his fingers brushed her neck and registered nothing did the memory of the winter night break on their interlude. Blinking, Hikoshu pulled back sharply. "Why did you do that?" Yan-lin didn't answer, her eyes locked onto his, glinting with a certain cunning that had been painfully absent just moments before. Her skin was still bloodless, her jaw quaking over shallow breaths, but the tilt of her head spoke of some hidden reserve that she'd tapped. A reserve that she now summoned as she pulled him into yet another kiss.

This time, however, there was no tenderness or quiet connection. Instead, Yan-lin threw all of her remaining strength into the ardent embrace, deepening the kiss as she drew her arms around his neck. Surprised, Hikoshu didn't resist, and quickly he was swept away in a surge of spontaneous reaction, instinct overriding reason. He returned the kiss with equal fervor, so caught up in the moment that he wasn't sure whether she slipped into his lap or he had drawn her there. Yan-lin fit snuggly anyway, her body trembling gently against his, possibly from the cold. He couldn't linger on the idea, her lips chasing away all but the simplest thoughts.

Though the cold had supposedly robbed him of sensation, every place she touched came alive. Her fingers swept with agonizing slowness across his shoulder blades, and Hikoshu could feel her heart against his chest, thudding in time to the beats he felt in her neck. Holding her was like holding a bonfire, its flames creeping across his skin as she shifted in his lap.

After moments—or even years to his addled mind—Yan-lin finally broke the kiss so that she could take a few shuddering breaths, her nose still pressed against his. Then, much to his confusion, she murmured headily, "You're warm enough now."

He was more than warm, actually; he was sweating. In mild alarm, Hikoshu drew back. Mere inches away, Yan-lin returned his gaze, her skin still a sickly white but her eyes filled with vivacity, as if the kiss had replenished her mentally even as her physical strength failed. With his arms still wrapped around her, he could feel her body shaking.

"You did that on purpose," Hikoshu accused, and her mouth twitched toward a confirming grin. But then her expression seemed to crumple, her head falling back weakly. Hikoshu caught her with a hand to her neck. "Yan-lin? Hold on." He pushed back the surcoat enough to press his other hand to her half-exposed breast, just below her collarbone. Then, cradling her close, he warmed her blood. The effect was almost immediate, color flooding her cheeks as her breathing sped up. Under his hand, her heart fluttered rapidly.

Yet several more moments passed before she could open her eyes and feebly grab his hand, uttering, "Stop." Hikoshu obliged and ceased bending, though he continued to hold her weight in his other arm. Yan-lin needed time to recover, and she did so slowly, her gaze searching the invisible canopy above them as she regained her bearings.

"I didn't realize you could do that," she finally said, the flush of her cheeks now fading. "Bend a person warm."

"I might be the only one who can." The skill required an inherent knowledge of firebending and waterbending. He'd tried it once before in the south, when a village boy had become lost in the snow drifts. Only Natquik had noticed he wasn't merely water-healing the boy's frostbite. And Natquik had promptly made him promise not to tell anyone what he'd done. "How did you think of that? Kissing me?"

Now that she felt more alert, Yan-lin used his shoulder to straighten from his arm. "You said you weren't warm enough. And kissing you seemed to warm you up fairly well the last time." At Hikoshu's blank look, she sighed. "In the stable?"

"I remember the stable," Hikoshu retorted, frowning. "But I've never been told that happens when I kiss someone." Mayami certainly hadn't said anything. In response, Yan-lin gave him one of her coy smirks, her eyes narrowing.

"Maybe then you only heat up when you're kissing me."

Hikoshu started to protest such a possibility but hesitated, the quip hanging on his lips as he considered the thought at length. Yan-lin had her wits about her again, and she quickly read into the ensuing silence. The humor slipped from her face, revealing an implicit question that had been hiding in her eyes. Which she now expressed freely, without even realizing she was asking the same thing as he.

"You're, ah…" Hikoshu started awkwardly, glancing away from her face only to find himself staring at her half-hidden cleavage. He quickly looked up again. "You're still in my lap."

"You're still holding me," she answered.

"I was trying to keep you warm."

"There are other ways we could keep warm."

The response almost left Hikoshu speechless. "You can't be suggesting…"

"I was actually suggesting we get up and walk." Yan-lin's expression was flat. "Don't think because of the way you kiss that I'm now all swamp-sick and silly over—"

"Believe me, I don't think for a moment that you're so-called 'swamp-sick and'—wait, what was that about the way I kiss?"

Yan-lin made a disgusted sound in her throat and pushed against his chest. "Hikoshu, this is not the time to flirt."

"What? How could you possibly think that I'm flirting?"

"Because you'd rather talk about you and me sleeping together—and sneak glances at my breasts—than talk about why a spirit decided to drag you into the middle of a lake, or even how we're going to get back to camp."

Hikoshu stared at her, dumbfounded. "You really are a politician."

"And you're still holding me."

In response, Hikoshu dropped his arm away. Yan-lin, however, was well enough recovered at that point to hold herself up, though she kept one hand tightly on his shoulder, belying a certain level of weakness. She didn't move out of his lap, either.

"Since you're obviously feeling much better," Hikoshu grumbled, "maybe I should take my coat back. Before I lose the sensation in my arms again." It was a bluff; he doubted he could even become cold while still holding Yan-lin.

She ignored both his request and his bluff, instead reaching curiously to draw his pendant from under the lapels of his robes. "What's this?" she murmured.

"Just a talisman." The bone-carved dhole glinted in the moonlight, a pale yellow between her darker fingers. The sight triggered a cascade of memories, but not his. Without thinking, he took it from her. "The spirit had one of these, too, actually. In my vision. But it was made of wood, not bone."

"You mean while you were in the lake?"

Hikoshu nodded, still examining the well-worn figurine. The masked dhole sat on its haunches, front paws hanging loosely in front of its chest, ears pricked as if alert. Part of its muzzle had been chipped off in the past, but the damage was hard to discern unless one looked closely. "It's a masked dhole—a sacred animal in the Water Tribes. They live in clans, just like the tribesmen." Baffled, he lit a fire in one palm so that he could see it better. But there was nothing special about the talisman—no indication of some hidden importance. "It has a lot of stories associated with it. So it also has a lot of names. One is _uajaqpuq aajuiliqtuq qiniqpajanga ammalu_: 'he who travels in spite of death.' They're one of the few species who'll actively hunt in winter."

"That's interesting," Yan-lin said softly, her eyes trained on the pendant. Then she glanced up at him with a look of insolent glee. "But completely wrong."

Hikoshu was too surprised to be offended. "And how's that?"

"You're mistranslating. _Uajaqpuq aajuiliqtuq qiniqpajanga ammalu _means'he who travels in search of death.' Not in spite of it." Again, Yan-lin took the talisman from him and held it up, the firelight creating haunting reflections in her eyes. "When a member of their clan is attacked, the dholes band together. They track down the perpetrator without remorse, without ever tiring. Then, when they find the guilty party—sometimes days later—they slaughter it." She let her story chill in the air, which even the fire cradled in his palm couldn't touch. "Masked dholes are loyal to the point of violence. And at one time, the Water Tribes were, too."

"How do you know all of this anyway?"

"I lived in the North Pole for a few months when I was young." The revelation made him feel even more chagrined about his poor attempts to learn the language. "But what's so important about a masked dhole? Why would the spirit have a talisman like yours?"

He needed a moment to nurse his wounded pride. "I don't know. Dhole talismans are pretty common. Shamans use them to channel guardian spirits, and laypeople use them to protect children. The only thing special about hers was the fact it was made of wood from the Spirit Oasis."

"Spirit Oasis?" Yan-lin looked shocked. "That's sacred ground."

"Yes, so the name implies." Hikoshu tried not to sound dry. Yan-lin caught it anyway and gave him a perturbed frown. "I think it's part of the reason why she became what she is."

"And what is she?"

"A killer."

The declaration left Yan-lin at a loss for words; she shivered and unconsciously leaned toward him, either craving warmth or protection. "I don't like spirits, Hikoshu."

"That makes two of us. If what you say is true about the masked dhole—if they really do kill without remorse—then maybe that's what it means. Maybe this spirit is avenging someone."

"But you also said it's a protection charm. So maybe the spirit is protecting someone."

"Maybe it's doing both."

Yan-lin watched him, but in the light of his fire, she seemed to be looking through him instead. As if intrigued by a puzzle whose pieces she now held. "Who would it be protecting then?"

"The southern tribesmen suspected that a Shaman had called on the spirit. Perhaps it's protecting him?"

"And killing people at his direction, too?"

"I'm not sure if this spirit acts by direction," Hikoshu said. "Or at least it didn't _feel_ like that. She wasn't compelled by someone. Rather, it felt like the victims were compelling her to punish them."

"Like justice?"

"Like retribution."

Yan-lin was silent for a moment. "So it's going to keep on killing, until it runs out of people to kill."

"This still doesn't answer who it kills, or why."

"And us? Are we safe?"

Hikoshu shook his head. "The Shamans of my village came to the conclusion it was only attacking older men of the Northern Water Tribe, which _should _mean that no one else is being targeted. But then the spirit tried to drown me, so now I'm not sure."

"Did it?" Yan-lin screwed her eyebrows together in thought. "You woke in time to save both of us. Maybe it was just a message."

He had to fight not to scoff. "What kind of message can near-drowning possibly be?"

"You said Avatars can detect imbalances. Maybe it was some sort of spiritual fishing float—a beacon to warn you of the spirit's intentions."

"And it had to drag me into a lake to do that?"

Yan-lin shrugged. "Even a good fishing float has to go under for you to know the fish are biting."

Though he couldn't be sure how true the analogy was, Hikoshu still found himself amazed. She had come up with it so quickly that he didn't even have an answer. All he could do was stare. "Yan-lin, you're something else." And she was. The entirety of the evening struck him then, as well as a deluge of realizations. How she'd jumped into a lake to save him, despite being unable to swim. How she'd stumbled on a plan to save them both, despite being half-unconscious. Yan-lin certainly had her imperfections, but there was also something else lurking around those imperfect edges.

Unaware of his thoughts, she beamed in response to his compliment and tucked the dhole pendant back under his robe. "Then at least I'm something, right?" She grinned at her joke, though the smile quickly faded into uncertainty as she caught his expression.

Hikoshu hadn't yet looked away when the forest came alive with panicked birds. Behind Yan-lin's head, the underbrush crackled as something large crashed through the trees, and a fire twice the size of his own flame flashed from between the trunks. Swiftly, Hikoshu set his arm around Yan-lin's shoulders and pulled her to the ground, drawing a gasp from her. The fire in his palm went out in the meantime, and now only the encroacher's light fell on them as Hikoshu pushed his weight onto his toes, one hand planted by Yan-lin's head.

The defensive stance was unnecessary; Diem burst through the forest moments later, holding a torch. The sight of Hikoshu hovering over Yan-lin brought the sandbender up short, and he gazed at them in wide-eyed disbelief, his chest heaving. "What are you two _doing_?"

"We were trying to find our way back to the campsite," Hikoshu said as Yan-lin crawled out from under him.

"Funny, that's not what it looks like you were doing. Which one of you set off the _dengshui_ plants?" He waved his torch toward the shore behind them, where the night had once more become a frozen, moonlit scene rendered black by the fire. "Now any man or guard on this side of the mountain knows someone's at that lake."

"Trust me, it wasn't intentional. Did you see anyone on your way here?" Hikoshu pushed himself up, remembering as soon as he got to his feet that he was still missing a boot.

Diem shook his head. "Just your footprints. But that's not to say they're not right behind me now. Yan-lin, where's your coat?"

"Don't know," she answered curtly, still on her knees. She didn't seem to care about Diem's urgency, as she fumbled under the embroidered gold sash of her robes and pulled free her dagger. She used this to shear the unwieldy sleeve of her other arm at the elbow, layers of dirtied silk pooling on the ground.

"Well, we don't have time to find it, so I guess you'll just have to continue wearing Hikoshu's." There was accusation in his voice.

Hikoshu would have protested the implication, but Yan-lin suddenly leaned forward to seize his knee, nearly taking his balance with it. Grunting a complaint, he wavered on one foot, then dropped himself onto the leaf litter in front of her. "What are you doing?"

"You have no shoe and we have to hurry." Yan-lin was all pragmatism and efficiency once more, her hands flying over his bare foot as she rolled the severed silk around it. Above them, Diem groaned.

"Seriously?"

Hikoshu caught her wrist just as she finished binding the makeshift wrap. "Don't take off any more clothing. If you get cold, it's only going to slow us down more."

"Well, I guess if I get cold again, you can always warm me back up." She threw him a smirk, then slid to her feet. "How close are the horstriches?"

"Does it matter?" Diem swung his torch toward the trees, as if it might catch hidden enemies. "We're already running by the sand glass." He didn't bother to explain the enigmatic expression, nor did he have to. They all understood what it meant.

Hikoshu stood up and gingerly put weight on the bandaged foot. It was once more numb, and the fabric would likely hinder both bending and movement with that limb, but at least it'd protect him from the snow. "I think this might just work."

"Then let's move fast." Diem was heading back into the trees, not waiting to see if they'd follow. "We're on the brink of dawn. Another hour, and we won't have any darkness to hide by."

As they plunged back into the forest, once more focused solely on escape, Hikoshu snatched a quick, last glance over his shoulder. Hints of blue just above the tree canopies indicated that dawn was indeed close by, but below it, the lake was still as thick and black as coal slurry. Quietly, a lone plant lit the lake with a final flash of silver, then everything was dark. Hikoshu eyed it a moment longer before he turned away to follow.

* * *

**A/N: **Next chapter is back to Natquik and Miyo, and should be published by next week.


	27. Ch 26: To Follow the Clouds

**Chapter 26 - To Follow the Clouds**

* * *

Miyo had lost her bending. Such a statement—such a fact—seemed so ludicrous that over the first night, she repeated it to herself incessantly, as if in repetition it would make more sense. But none of the key words in that absurd certainty managed to come together. So she struggled through the first evening in shock, while Natquik periodically examined her with his bending.

"There's no reason you can't bend. Your _chi_ is flowing fine."

"But I can't. I just…" She trailed off weakly as she once more threw a breeze at the flames of the campfire, and again, the air simply ignored her.

"Maybe it's the venom. Maybe it's interrupting _something_. Just give it time to run its course."

And that was all there was to do. Sit, and wait.

Natquik willingly gave her as much time as she needed, and a day passed with no improvement. By the next evening, Miyo insisted he let her change back into her airbending habit.

"I can't check the poultice if you do that," he explained patiently as they sat by the fire, and she gazed at him, hoping he could see how earnest she was.

"Please, Natquik. I need to be in my own clothes." She needed for something to be normal.

He relented eventually, and relieved, Miyo pulled on the habit, its once vibrant hues of saffron and gamboge muted with age, its linen fabric familiar against her skin. But it was also different now; it was _cold_, as she didn't have her bending to keep her warm. The clothes, so much a part of her identity, were foreign to her, and she shivered by the fire most of the night, keeping her misery to herself.

The next day, her bending had not returned, but they couldn't delay any longer. So she pushed the unhappiness and the wrongness and the strangeness to the back of her mind, where it could fester without her thinking about it, and told Natquik they needed to go. He asked her if her bending had come back. She lied and said it was getting better.

Only she couldn't lie to Tehsa, who sensed her misgivings as she contemplated how to saddle the bison. Tehsa snuffled, rumbled, and nudged her with her large, black nose, as if she thought that she could sniff out the dilemma and fix it with a few gentle licks. But the animal's comfort did nothing to solve their predicament. Eventually, Miyo had to entreat Natquik to help her, and between them, they devised a way to pull the saddle on with rope. Tehsa, understanding the nature of the problem, helped as much as she could by staying near the ground. When it was done, Natquik watched Miyo with a worried frown as Tehsa lowered her head so she could climb up. Grateful, she hugged the bison and tried not to crumble under the stress.

Despite the attempts at normality, nothing seemed right about flying Tehsa. The soft, high winds that had never bothered her before now bit into her, making her eyes water and the tips of her ears sting. And the security she'd always felt in the air was now lacking. It wasn't as if she feared falling, for Miyo could never be afraid of heights. But the comfort she had in knowing that she could fly just as well as Tehsa was gone, and with it her sense of safety.

She landed early that day, refusing to give Natquik an explanation why. He didn't press it, either, and quickly built a fire in the forest clearing as the sun dipped behind dead trees. Wordlessly, she huddled close to it, her fingers aching in the heat of the flames. Natquik must have noticed how red and stiff her skin was, for he didn't believe her insistence that she was fine this time. Instead, he knelt by her and took her hands into his, healing what could have been frostbite. As he treated her ears, his touch both soothing and agonizing, his voice was stern.

"You're letting yourself get too cold. You have to cover up with something."

But guiding Tehsa was a step closer to normal, and covering her hands was a step further away. "I was just distracted. It'll be better tomorrow."

It wasn't better the next day. In fact, it was a thousand times worse.

The pain from the cold grew more severe, and Miyo found herself no longer enjoying the sensation of flying. That feeling had defined much of her life—had made her as much of an Air Nun as any of her spiritual devotions—and to lose it now caused her heart to throb as powerfully as her hands, locked in one position on Tehsa's reins. The day after brought even more misery. As the morning ebbed into afternoon, her thoughts turned dark. They turned toward Tehsa's airbending, and the ease with which she glided through the clouds. That fact bored into Miyo, like a needle jammed into the fresh wound left by the snake's venom. Horrorstricken at such bitter, unwarranted thoughts, Miyo tried to push away this feeling, too. Toward the back of her mind, where all the unhappy emotions were quickly becoming crowded.

When they landed, Natquik once more chastised her for her carelessness as he healed her hands, but she didn't answer this time. She didn't speak at all, her eyes focused on the fire. He urged her to eat, which she also ignored. And when night rolled around, when she'd usually curl up next to Tehsa's warm belly, she chose instead to stay by the embers of the fire pit. Natquik once again cautioned her about staying warm, and she once again ignored him. She couldn't be by Tehsa tonight. The bison would be miserable because she was miserable.

Early the next morning, Miyo snuck away from camp and hid herself in the woods, waking birds which hadn't yet roused in the false dawn, no wind disturbing the trees. There was also no light, and it was still painfully cold. But she was tired of waiting, so under the cover of darkness, she airbended. She moved through every routine she knew, spinning on her heels, her arms a blur around her. After a while, she wasn't even cold anymore, and the sweat formed a sticky layer on the back of her neck.

Nothing happened. Emptiness turned to desperation, which then turned to frustration. And the cold, and the resentment, and the unhappiness, and all the wrongness she'd been pushing back for the last two days finally surfaced. With an anguished shout, she threw an air blast into one of the lifeless trees.

A bird took off at the noise, but nothing else moved. Not even a leaf.

It was too much. Exhausted, she fell to her knees in the center of the clearing, her shoulders strained under the weight of her emotions. The peace that her bending had always brought her was now gone, leaving her alone, vulnerable, terrified. What if, instead of the snake venom, the spirits had decreed this? What if they had determined that she was not fit for the life of an Air Nun? Would she even be able to go home again?

Miyo didn't know how long she sat by herself before she heard the crackling of approaching footsteps. The false dawn had already faded into a true dawn, though the trees remained in shadow. She knew it was Natquik without hearing his voice, as even the sound of his well-worn boots on leaves was familiar to her. Yet she didn't stand or look up to meet him, all of her ability to care drained in the face of futility.

"Miyo, are you crazy?" His voice was admonishing, as it had been for the last two days. "You're going to freeze out here."

"I'm fine," she muttered dully, her eyes set on the leaf litter under her knees. "I just want to be alone."

"Yeah, well, be alone next to the fire. Not in the middle of the woods." He clasped her shoulder, and the touch sent waves of irrational anger through her.

"Get off of me!" She pushed his hand away. There was a long, dead silence, and part of her wanted to feel guilty. But part of her didn't want to feel at all, so she absently tried to shove that emotion into the back of her mind. It didn't go this time.

"You still can't bend?" Natquik's voice was low, and as he circled around her, the toes of his leather boots came into her vision.

"It's getting better," she said hollowly, but even before she finished, he'd knelt in front of her and seized her hands.

"Stop lying." He turned her palms up, his thumbs resting in the center of them. "Why are you lying to me?"

It was then she finally met his gaze, and Miyo realized she hadn't looked at him in two days. He hadn't changed in that time; his eyes were still a breathtaking blue, filled with concern, and the laugh lines around his mouth had vanished into an uncharacteristic frown. Yet the silent connection with him which she had fought until now dragged out all of the emotions she'd also fought to keep buried, and suddenly, Miyo found it very hard to stay in control.

"This is scary, Natquik," she murmured, not sure if it would make sense to him. "Of all the things I've been through—all the times I felt helpless—this is by far the most afraid I've ever been." It was becoming difficult to speak, and she swallowed back a knot in her throat. "I can understand death. I can understand physical pain. But this, I can't under—"

He didn't let her finish, as she knew he wouldn't. Suddenly, she was in his arms, pressed against his neck. Part of her really wanted to cry, but part of her didn't want to be that vulnerable when she was feeling so weak. Still, she clung to him, her hands gripping his coat as the warmth of his neck thawed hers.

"We'll stay here." His voice was muffled against her hair, and she could feel his breath against her skin. "We'll stay here until I can figure out how to fix this."

"It's not something you can heal." Hadn't they already tried that? Once again, frustration welled in her, and she pulled out of his embrace. "We have to get to the North Pole. We don't have time to wait."

"You can't possibly think that the North Pole is more important than you getting better. Let's just wait another—"

"I'm tired of waiting, Natquik!" The outburst of anger caught them both by surprise, and Natquik stared at her, alarmed. "It's not getting better, so I just need to move on." Then the anger again sunk into desperation, her voice wavering with the unexpressed emotion. "I need to do something, anything, to get my mind off how cold I feel."

Miyo was shaking. She half-expected him to hold her again, which he certainly looked prepared to do. But instead, Natquik took her hands and pressed their backs against his cheeks.

"Then just let me help try to keep you warm."

Somewhere, something inside her collapsed, and she buried herself once more in his chest, clutching him as her heart ached behind her ribs.

He led her out of the woods and back to the campsite, holding onto her hand the entire way. Perhaps another time, she would've fought the contact, but now she relished the feel of his palm against hers—a closeness that she craved, when she was so isolated from the very thing that made her who she was. And when he finally released her, leaving her by the fire while he searched out something to eat, she huddled near the flames and tried hard not to miss his presence.

They stayed there that day at Natquik's insistence. In fact, he said they wouldn't leave until she ate something, so she chewed listlessly on a few dried dates that Hikoshu had packed for her. The food eased her stomach a little, and Miyo realized that she might've been hungrier than she thought. Still, the very act of eating required more enthusiasm than she could muster, so she turned away his other offers of nuts and brookberries.

He left for a while, presumably to hunt. After all, watching her for the past couple of days had afforded him little opportunity to replenish his waning supplies of meat, and so unsurprisingly, Natquik was gone for several hours. Alone with Miyo, Tehsa groaned a question and snuck closer to nudge her. Miyo brushed at her nose and found a smile for the bison, though she didn't stand. Uncomforted and unconvinced, Tehsa lay beside her, urging Miyo to rest against her snout. Finally she gave in and wrapped an arm around the bison's muzzle, hugging the poor beast. Tehsa was likely missing her original rider, whom she hadn't seen in nearly two months. And Miyo, who normally could have eased the bison's loneliness, no longer had any reassurance to offer. It left them both unhappy, though in this brief moment, they found comfort in leaning against each other.

They were sitting like that when Natquik returned, though Tehsa quickly retreated with a growl at the smell of dead animal on the waterbender. Used to the reaction, Natquik merely threw two small, flayed carcasses next to the fire and pulled off his coat, preparing to spit them. Occasionally as he worked, he glanced up at Miyo, as if expecting her to say something about the barbaric practice of meat-eating. Miyo watched him dully, her arms wrapped around her knees.

Night fell, and Miyo moved closer to the fire pit. Even Tehsa neared, though staying on the opposite side of the left-overs Natquik had set up for drying. They were all three quiet, all three left to their thoughts. But Miyo was fine with that. Her outburst that morning had passed back into emptiness again, as well as something else. Something she could hardly describe—something she didn't really have the desire to describe.

She was still dwelling on this strange new feeling when she felt something encircle her. About to protest her need for a coat, she looked up and hesitated. It wasn't a coat, but Natquik himself who pulled his arms around her, folding his legs out to either side of hers.

"Natquik, what are you doing?"

"Just keeping you warm." He flashed a grin next to her cheek and urged her to lean back against his chest. Unwilling to argue, she obliged, resting her head along his shoulder as he wrapped his arms tight around her.

In fact, it _was_ warmer. The fire could only reach the front of her, and so her back had been exposed all day to the chill. It hadn't been so bad when the sun was out, adding a little heat. But after dark, when there was nothing but the trees to hold back the breeze, it had turned very cold.

"How about you?" she said after a while, noting that his arms were only covered in the long sleeves of his woolen robe, his coat still abandoned somewhere out of sight. He shrugged against her neck, his chin brushing her temple.

"I'll be fine. I've got you after all, right?"

She didn't respond, but she appreciated what he was doing. Leaving his coat off because he knew how much she hated the fur. Holding her because he knew she needed the contact. It was enough to fill the emptiness again and cause her to burn with grief.

"I don't know what's wrong with me, Natquik. I don't know if it's ever going to end." She meant more than just her bending. He seemed to understand, his breath soft against her cheek.

"Miyo, you're the most ridiculous woman I ever met." That response brought her around sharply, which Natquik anticipated; his expression was already set in a mollifying grin. "I've always wondered how someone so capable could be full of such self-doubt."

"And I've always wondered how such a halfway considerate man could be such an oaf with words." Her reaction made him laugh, his arms squeezing her to him so she couldn't wiggle away.

"You remember a couple of years ago, you told me about the enlightenment you Air Nomads strive for? You told me that there are a thousand ways to find it, and none of them wrong. Meaning anyone can be enlightened—Air Nomads, swampbenders. Even walrus-bears, if they had enough brains to tell fish from a fishing boat. So why do you have to be a stuffy, inaccessible nun to find inner peace?"

He wasn't consoling her. In fact, he was doing the exact opposite, inciting annoyance instead of calm. He obviously didn't understand; she should have expected it. What she didn't expect, however, was how much it would hurt. "Thank you for insulting my entire way of life."

"I'm not insulting your entire way of life. I'm insulting a bunch of Air Nuns who thought that for you to be happy, you had to be happy like them."

"And you're saying they're wrong?"

"I'm saying they're wrong for you. You're the most ridiculous woman I know, Miyo, but you're also the most passionate and the most caring. You almost broke out into tears when I swatted a tundra moth once, and then you ignored me for half a day. How could you be that way if you tried to follow a life of detachment?"

She _was _almost in tears. "So in other words, I'm terrible at being an Air Nun."

"Yes. You are. But you're absolutely wonderful at being you." He gave her a lopsided smile. "And that's the woman I love being with. So maybe only airbenders can be Air Nuns. And maybe you can't airbend. That doesn't change who you are. Nor will getting your airbending back—which I'm very certain you will—make you any more of an Air Nun. Perhaps this one way to enlightenment won't work, but as you told me, there are nine hundred and ninety-nine others. You have to find your own way, Miyo. And stop worrying if your path matches anyone else's."

Now Miyo didn't understand. It flew in the face of everything she'd ever known. How could she not be a temple Nomad? That was what an airbender was. And Natquik's words, softened with comfort and imbued with love, seemed to make perfect sense while making no sense. She was who she was. She was an airbender. She was an Air Nun. So how could she be anything else?

"I'm scared." She was terrified. She couldn't imagine life without airbending—didn't want to imagine it. And she couldn't imagine life without the Temple. The future loomed before her, cloudy and intimidating.

"Well, you've got me. And though all I'm good for is some raunchy humor and a laugh, that's sometimes the one thing a person needs." His voice was teasing, but also somber, and she cracked an unhappy smile at the joke.

"I need you for more than that."

He gave her hand a tight squeeze, and they fell silent.

The next day, nothing had changed. She still couldn't bend, and she still felt empty inside. But every time she looked to Natquik now, she felt a small thrill of energy and a tiny moment of peace. As a result, she looked at him frequently while they saddled Tehsa.

Miyo tolerated the cold that morning, keeping her hands tucked between her legs when she thought that Tehsa didn't need her guidance. It staved off the chill for longer than before, but as the sun crept past noon, she felt her skin grow raw and tight again. Now, though, she didn't keep her misery to herself. Instead, she crawled into the saddle and asked Natquik for help—a gesture she wouldn't have considered in the days before.

Natquik, however, didn't water-heal her like she expected. No water unless they landed, he explained, and caressed her hands in his. She allowed him to tuck her under his arm, holding her sweetly even as he teased her with his old, ruthless humor. Miyo tried to retaliate, but none of her barbs contained the same sting. They couldn't while she was deriving such warmth and strength from him.

Miyo made frequent visits to the back of the saddle that day, when she thought that Tehsa could spare her for a moment. With each trip, she became more relaxed, losing the fear that had kept her away from Natquik for so many years. The truth was that she felt safer than she had in a long time, ever since she left Hikoshu in the North. She realized how much she missed caring about someone so deeply, and being free to care about someone.

Of course, that didn't stop him from joking lewdly. "You know, if you really want to get close, I got a sleeping roll we can share. Ow!" He gave her a playful glare as she pinched his thumb. Then she slipped back over onto Tehsa's neck, trying hard not to smile.

After they'd made camp, and Natquik had once more bribed her into eating something small—which she did far more readily—he again curled himself around her, resting his hands on her stomach as she clasped his arms. The feel of him was so unbelievably comforting that she could almost forget about how wrong she still felt. She fought to hide herself in him, her forehead buried in the side of his neck as she moved with the rise and fall of his chest.

But the cold still found a way to reach her, and Natquik's words from the previous night still flitted through her thoughts. Like buzzard-wasps, they circled her, waiting for her remaining strength to give out.

"I remember when I found out I could bend," she finally said, disturbing the peace created by fire sparks and Tehsa's steady breaths. Natquik, half asleep in that comfortable silence, hummed a response that vibrated her temple. "I was six years old. Living on the steppes, dressed in animal skins. I had been taking care of my younger brother while my mother was in labor. I was blowing on an ember, trying to make it catch, because I was too young to make the fire drill work and my father was still with the herds. My frustration got the best of me, and I blew the fire halfway across the camp."

Natquik stayed quiet while she talked, which was just as well. The fire in front of her caught Miyo up in memories, her mind drifting like the smoke back to distant times. "I never knew such peace as I did that summer when I discovered airbending. I was still so young that I hadn't yet been scared into hating heights, and I would jump off cliffs like a seabird, soaring through clouds of mist. I even stole a gazelk hide and fashioned a rudimentary glider, which I played with until I broke it on a bad landing. To me, the skies opened up. I was no longer tied to the land, like my family. I was free like a bird, and I knew someday I was going to follow the clouds over the horizon. I just knew I was going to see what lay beyond the steppes.

"But then they discovered my bending." Miyo could hear the joy seep out of her voice, just as she felt the echoes of dismay from twenty years before. "My village heaped me with honors, because of my gift. Then the temple Nomads came. They took me away to the Western Air Temple. And I started my life as a novice. As an Air Nun." Being an Air Nun had allowed her to see the world; it had given her the skies, and introduced her to a path that might eventually lead her to enlightenment. But on that first night, all the Air Nuns did was take her away from the only life she'd known and tell her that she could never go back.

Now Miyo couldn't remember her mother's face, or how hard her mother cried when they took her. Did her mother cry? Or was she so weary with so many kids to feed that she was happy that Miyo would be cared for? Such sad thoughts for a little girl to bear. "The fact is, airbending's all I've had. Even before I was a nun, I was an airbender. And…" And it hurt to think she'd lost that. "I don't know what I am if I can't follow the clouds."

Natquik was so quiet that Miyo thought for a moment that he'd stopped listening to her. But when he spoke, his voice was full of memory, too, and held the same hint of sadness. "I discovered I could bend by letting my sister die."

Shocked, Miyo sat up to look at him, and Natquik's eyes briefly lit on her before glancing back to the fire. The flames made pinpoints of his pupils, and his expression was grim. "My oldest brother had taken me tiger-seal hunting, and I suppose she had tagged along. She was only three. Anyway, the ice had thinned early that year and my brother didn't know it. We didn't expect such a tiny girl to fall through, but…" He shook his head. "My brother jumped in after her, and cut his head on the ice ledge. All I saw was the blood. Of course, strange things happen when you're seven years old and alone in the tundra. I didn't even realize I was bending when I pulled my brother out of the water. Probably the strongest bending I've ever done, too. My sister, though…."

"Natquik," Miyo breathed, horrified, and Natquik finally met her gaze with regret.

"Found out how well I could heal that day, too. I was proclaimed to have a natural gift, to have picked it up so effortlessly." His voice assumed its usual braggart affectation, but there was a thick layer of mockery, too. "Maybe the greatest gift they'd seen in centuries. But all I could think was if it was that great, then why didn't I save my sister?"

"That wasn't your fault," she protested, as if she had to defend him against himself. "It was a horrible accident. You were only a child."

Natquik shrugged. "Perhaps. But when I was sitting next to that ice hole, screaming out my lungs, I wasn't screaming for my sister." Then quickly he continued, before she could launch another protest. "I'm not telling you this because I regret what happened. I do regret it, but that's not the point. The fact is, Miyo, bad things happen. Horrible things. If you live long enough, you will always have tragedies. But you'll have triumphs, too. If I had let that moment in the tundra twenty years ago define who I was going to be, I wouldn't have become the man I am now. Instead of fearing my bending, I embraced it. And do you know how many countless lives I've saved since then? The lives of old men and little girls alike? I lost my sister, but I've prevented the same thing from happening to others. That has to be worth something."

"But did it ever stop hurting?"

"Not even for a day. You don't forget the bad things. You just learn to find the good."

That wasn't the answer she wanted, but in light of Natquik's long-abandoned grief, her own grief couldn't hold up. Was losing her bending the same as losing a sister? It felt the same as losing a part of her soul, and Miyo had never really lost her brothers so much as left them. So what did the comparison mean?

Natquik didn't seem to think that anything need be compared as he clasped her cheek. "You have such good in you, Miyo. I only wish you could see yourself as I do." He was looking at her with that expression he always wore at the strangest moments, that always made her flush hot and cold at the same time.

"What could you possibly see?" she heard herself ask. Not because she doubted him, but because she needed to know what put that light in his eyes whenever she met his gaze.

Natquik smiled softly. "The sky."

The answer took her breath away. Wordlessly, she curled back into his embrace, her head nestling under his as he held her tight.

So much changed between them, and so quickly. Miyo's unease at being close to him was gone, replaced instead by a need to be close to him. They both knew in two weeks' time, Natquik would be married to someone else. And they both knew that whatever would happen to Miyo in the future, it would still be with the Temple somehow. But they also knew this was the last opportunity they would have to be together. So they chastely enjoyed each other's company, free if briefly from the constraints of two very different worlds.

They also talked more freely than they had in the past. Gone were the uncomfortable silences and the tense moments, where they wondered if they were going too far. They chatted long into the night about everything and nothing, as if they could fit an entire life's worth of conversations into just a few days.

"I can't stand gold," Natquik said, after Miyo had challenged him to come up with a list of ten things he didn't like. "It's a totally pointless metal. You can't make knives out of it, you can't build with it. I'm not sure why people even use it."

"Because it makes for nice jewelry?" Miyo offered with some amusement, though he didn't look convinced.

"Anything makes for nice jewelry if you add enough craft, but you don't see people going to war over buffalo-yak dung."

Miyo wrinkled her nose. "I'm pretty certain no one would wear buffalo-yak dung."

"Regardless, people put too much store in decoration. That's what I like about you. You don't wear useless baubles. If we were to be married, for instance, you wouldn't ask me to make you a betrothal necklace."

Miyo's heart threw in an extra beat. "I wouldn't?"

"You would?" Natquik suddenly seemed doubtful, as if maybe he should retract everything he'd said. Instead of torturing him, however, Miyo reached up to tug on his copper-bone necklace.

"You can't say much about personal decoration." Natquik gave an affronted scoff.

"That's a warrior's token. It's entirely different." The response made her laugh as she snuggled deep into his arms.

Two nights passed like that, and though the days seemed rather dreary to Miyo, when she had to sit at the front of the bison alone with the cold and her feelings of wrongness, she could at least look forward to their evenings by the fireside.

"When I was a girl, we'd have to practice airbending a feather." She was playing with his hand as she spoke, drawing invisible shapes on his palm. "Then the other novices found out I was ticklish—"

"Wait, you're ticklish?" he interrupted, and she looked at him askance, frowning suspiciously.

"Why?"

"No reason. What was your most ticklish spot?" She started to pull away, but he yanked his hand from her grip, clutching her tight to him as he plucked at her ribs and stomach. Fighting back peals of laughter, she struggled to push him off, but he only held her down.

At night now, Miyo didn't sleep next to Tehsa, as she had for most of the journey. Instead, she invariably fell asleep in Natquik's arms, waking the next morning to discover him already up and about, having left something under her head. One morning, she awoke still in his arms to find him awake as well, studying her. He got up to work without any explanation.

Two more nights passed that way, finishing out their last week together. Miyo's bending had not yet returned, and she would readily admit a silent depression had entrenched itself in her, manifested by her frequent attempts to bend and made worse by her inevitable failure. But what depressed her more, she would not so readily admit, was the fact that her time with Natquik was at an end. The day after tomorrow, they would be in the Northern Water Tribe, and she would be Air Nun Miyo again.

"We'll be over the Kaiyun-Ki Strait by midday tomorrow," she said, shivering against his chest. They were in the high mountains now, and though Natquik had bended all the snow away from them, it still made the air so cold that even the fire didn't help. Next to them, Tehsa grumbled and flapped her tail, turning over onto her back.

"Do you need me to bend a shelter?" he murmured near her ear, rubbing at her arms. She shook her head, fighting back another shiver.

"You couldn't make one big enough for Tehsa." The snow wasn't thick enough in that part of the range, so she was willing to stay in the elements if Tehsa had to stay. And while she knew Natquik wanted to point out how ridiculous that was—how Tehsa could bend to stay warm and she couldn't—he stayed quiet, for which she was grateful.

"You should wear my coat." It was a pointless suggestion, as was his next one. "Or at least cover up in my sleeping roll."

"With you in it?" she said with a grin, and he laughed, his breath hot on her cheek.

"It'd keep you warm."

"Thanks, but I think you need your coat more, what with your sensitive Water Tribe skin." He laughed again and pressed his lips to her ear, which sent chills through her unrelated to the cold.

"You're welcome to find out how sensitive it really is."

She pushed his chin away with two fingers. "I'll pass." Then they settled into their usual comfortable silence, broken only by the sound of the snapping logs, Tehsa's occasionally happy groans, and Miyo's shivers.

"Natquik," she eventually said, and he brushed his head against the top of hers in response. "Why have you never taught me any of the Water Tribe language?"

"I didn't know you wanted to learn."

"I realized I might need it, if I'm going to help you ask questions about the murders."

He didn't answer at first, and she wondered if maybe she'd said something wrong. Maybe learning the Water Tribe language was something taboo. Maybe asking to learn it was. Finally, though, he did speak, his tone curious. "Are you planning to stay?"

"Well, not long. Tehsa has to get back home, after all. Just…" She didn't want to admit she was scared to return to the Temple without her bending. And that maybe she was scared to leave him. "Just until your wedding."

That killed some of his good humor, his hands dropping away from her arms. But just as quickly, it returned. "So you want to learn _imaqupaqit_? You'll probably butcher the language."

"Are you afraid to teach me?" Miyo bent her head back to catch his expression, hoping not to see any trace of irritation there—the kind of irritation he showed any time his wedding was mentioned. Fortunately, he'd moved on, grinning at her deviously.

"Oh, I can teach you. Like, uh…_ai_. That's hello." She repeated it as she rested her head against his jaw, and she could feel him smile. "And _sumai_ is 'goodbye.'"

"For some reason, I thought the Water Tribe language would be harder."

"Oh? Alright, then how about—" And he proceeded to say a string of syllables she couldn't begin to piece together. At her confused silence, he laughed. "I'll say it slowly. _Aa. Tii-tu-ru-ma-ga-lua-jun-ga._"

"Natquik, I can't say all that. What does it mean?"

"Why, yes, I _would_ love some tea."

"Well, then. I guess I just won't drink a lot of tea." That made him laugh harder, and she slipped one of her frozen hands into his. "Give me something a little shorter."

"Hmm…_amaruvit_." He then shook his head as she repeated it. "No, look at me. Face me." When she turned toward him, he pressed his fingers around her mouth, forcing her lips to pucker as she repeated the phrase. "Now say it with a sultry look."

Miyo yanked herself out of his grip, holding his wrist. "What am I saying?" At that, his grin turned villainous.

"You called me a wolf."

She scoffed and threw his hand down. "Come on, teach me something I can use."

He laughed again, his eyes dancing in the firelight, and she had to smile. Tugging on one of the beaded plaits hanging over his shoulder, she settled back against his chest.

"How about…_nalligivagit_?" His tone was warm, mirthful, and full of so much affection that it energized her despite the cold.

"And what does that mean?" He hesitated so long in answering her that she started to sit up with a frown. "Natquik?"

"It's an old way of saying 'goodbye,'" he finally said, one arm wrapping around her waist to keep her from pulling away. Satisfied that he answered, she obeyed. "It means 'may the spirits look away tomorrow.'"

"It means all that?" She couldn't hide her disbelief. For such a short word, it certainly said a lot. "Then what does _that_ mean?"

"Well, in the Water Tribes, the spirits aren't always good things. But sometimes they are. And the farewell, it's a way of saying 'may your luck change.' So if the spirits are smiling on a person, it can be a curse—may tomorrow, they stop smiling on you. And if the person is having bad luck, then it's a prayer—meaning that the spirits will stop bringing their ill will on you."

"Can't you just say good-bye?" She was mocking him, but he laughed anyway.

"We say that, too, but try it out. _Nalligivagit._"

"_Nalligivagit_," she repeated obediently, though again, he said nothing. Figuring she had the pronunciation wrong, she sat up to face him, turning in his lap.

"What? Did I skip a syllable?" He was staring at her in his special way again, though it was laced with something else. Sadness? He certainly wasn't smiling. "Did I butcher it that badly?"

"No," he said quietly, his voice definitely somber. "Actually, you said it perfectly."

"Then what's with the frown?" She pushed herself to her knees, crossing her arms over her breasts as she shivered. "Have I cursed you now?"

"No, I'm…" and he gave his head a shake, the grin returning. "No, it's just hearing my native language makes me homesick." She smiled uncertainly, still doubting him, and brushed his hair behind his ear.

"_Nalligivagit_, Natquik."

He looked so sad. "_Nalligivagit_, Miyo."

* * *

**A/N: **So it took me a week longer than I said it would. There wasn't much to edit in the chapter, but unfortunately, I was working most of the time. So I'll try to get the next chapter out faster or at least as fast - but there's a lot more to edit.


	28. Ch 27: Lessons

**Chapter 27 - Lessons**

* * *

Hikoshu and the others spent two days on the mountain being chased by the sound of imaginary soldiers. Yet for all of their desperate attempts to escape, there was no indication they were even being pursued.

"We could be staying ahead of them," Yan-lin explained on the second night, as they once more shivered in an earthen dug-out heated only by bodies, since fire would have given them away. "We might be doing such an efficient job of hiding that we've already lost them." Hikoshu could hear in her voice that even she didn't believe her own excuses.

"No matter that being the case, we still have to keep low. Take no chances." Diem had pulled the neck of his outer robe over his head in the semblance of a cap, his face framed by its lapels as if he were a Ba Sing Se Earth Cleric. Hikoshu agreed silently, but didn't say as much. It was almost too cold to speak.

In reality, he wasn't sure what this meant. His thoughts flew back to the night they escaped Omashu, and how they narrowly evaded capture at the gate. But had they? The guards hadn't seemed suspicious. And while it was true the Gangzhou soldiers had arrested them, the men hadn't even appeared to be looking for Yan-lin. It was as if the soldiers had merely stumbled on them in the plaza, realizing at the last moment that maybe they would need to detain her.

No, it didn't seem like Du Gong had put much effort into trying to recapture Yan-lin. Hikoshu had faced worse adversity while skipping airbending lessons back at the Western Air Temple.

He could tell Yan-lin was having the same doubts, though she didn't express them as the trio continued in their mad flight through the mountain wilderness. He suspected that, like him, she found it curious but had no desire to question their good luck. It may have not made a lot of sense, but it didn't change what he needed to do. In fact, it actually helped, and so Hikoshu tried not to worry as he hid their tracks from the back of Yan-lin's ostrich-horse.

They had to stop frequently as they descended the mountain, mostly because Hikoshu now had no coat to protect him from the elements. He derived some warmth from Yan-lin while they rode, but after a few hours the constant breeze wore him down and forced him to pause long enough to heat his own hands. Diem watched the roads nervously all the while, as if someone could see the tiny flame from several miles away, then catch them before they could take to the trail again.

Three days passed from that night in Gangzhou to the morning that they reached the grasslands. The mountain had fallen away steeply, and gray foothills now directed them forward, keeping them on narrow, gravelly paths that skirted ice-covered rivers. The snow had thinned as well, and Diem explained it was because of the mountain range, which caught storm clouds on its peaks and prevented rain from reaching the eastern lands. That also explained why 'grassland' was a term of such modest exaggeration: the gray hills gradually stooped into plains of black dirt and brittle shrubs, as if the area hadn't seen rain in years. There certainly was no grass.

The ostrich-horses, however, after so many days of pine nuts, delighted in this change of environment, where they could forage for more appetizing seeds. They almost seemed adapted for the plains, their beaks pecking through the prickly sedge. Unfortunately, their humans weren't quite so well adapted, forcing them to survive on the dwindling rations Diem had bought in Gangzhou as well as whatever Hikoshu could catch in the foothills. Which hadn't been much—he was never a very good hunter. Shaman Kinu had said it was because hunting ran contrary to his need for balance. Hikoshu just thought he'd had too much of death to want to inflict it on anything else.

On the second day of riding through the plains, when the range had faded to a hazy blue behind them and the sun had heated the air enough to make them shed their coats, Hikoshu decided this was easily the most boring land he'd ever seen. The view was flat—as flat as the ocean on a still day. Even the sky refused to be interesting, thin clouds huddling at the horizon as if afraid to venture out into the open.

"Well, it's not got sweeping mountains or lazy oceans," Diem had said with a frown when Hikoshu asked if there was anything more to it. "But what it doesn't have in landforms, it makes up with in spirit."

Apparently, Diem thought 'spirit' was another term for 'prairie gophers.' And, yes. It had plenty of those.

Halfway through the second day on the plains, Yan-lin surprised him. They'd been riding in their usual silence, Hikoshu's thoughts beyond the gray horizon and the strange stickiness that had formed wherever his body touched hers. Diem followed a faint trail that likely hadn't been used for years, almost entirely black dirt and burr plants that had started to creep past its borders. They in turn rode a small distance behind him.

"Ready to learn how to ride a horstrich?" she said, shaking Hikoshu from his stupor.

"You're ready to teach me?"

"The view's getting monotonous, and I'd like to take a nap."

He kind of wished _he_ could take a nap, but it'd require taking one on her, and that didn't sound so comfortable for either of them. "I think I pretty much have it figured out."

"Oh?" Her voice was wry.

"Well, I've been on an ostrich-horse for nearly a week. I'd have to be pretty unobservant not to know how, at this point."

"Then care to show me?" Suddenly, Yan-lin drew the animal to a halt and shoved the reins between Hikoshu's fingers. Diem, ahead of them, slowly became aware that they'd stopped moving and drew his ostrich-horse up sharply to face them.

"Yan-lin, what're you doing?"

"Hikoshu says he's got Ben-Pao covered," she said with amusement, and Hikoshu began to suspect this might be an elaborate joke. "I'm just giving him the reins."

Diem frowned, then urged his ostrich-horse off the road. As if afraid that Hikoshu might end up running him over. Really, a true testament of faith.

"So what's first?" She turned to pin him with a grin. "It's all yours."

"Don't I need to be in front?" he protested, to which she laughed.

"I think I'll stay in front for now. Don't want you knocking me off, too." He realized she was clutching the horn of the saddle. So, essentially, neither of them believed in him.

"Oh, come on. It's not hard." To prove his point, Hikoshu tapped his heels into the flanks of the ostrich-horse—a gentle nudge, just as Yan-lin always gave to get the bird into motion. In response, the ostrich-horse screeched.

And abruptly, he was on the ground, staring up at the sky, while a heavy cloud of dust settled on him.

Diem nearly fell off of his own ostrich-horse in laughter, literally bent over its neck and holding his stomach as he gasped for breath. Yan-lin was laughing, too, having brought the dumb beast under control several yards away. They both ambled back calmly, though Ben-Pao's glassy eyes seemed to be glaring.

"Next time, try not to kick it in the gizzard," Diem said as he leaned down from his saddle to help Hikoshu up. Hurting more from embarrassment than from the fall, Hikoshu attempted to dust off both his robes and his pride.

"You knew I was going to do that."

"Of course. If you hadn't, it wouldn't've been funny."

Yan-lin smirked broadly as she dismounted. "You can put your feet in the stirrups from now on. So you don't spur it in the wrong place. Horstriches can be moody when they're kicked wrong."

After she felt he was humbled enough to receive instruction, Yan-lin was a much kinder teacher. She still sat in front—as a precaution, she told him—but she let him take both the reins and the stirrups, holding the back of his hands to keep balance. By the end of the day, Hikoshu could at least keep Ben-Pao from wandering off the road. Stopping seemed to be just out of his reach, though, as well as commands for the ostrich-horse to go faster. But that was fine. He only really wanted the animal to go slow.

The next morning, Yan-lin trusted him enough not to hold his hands. By noon, she'd reclined against his chest, balancing herself between his arms. When Hikoshu asked if she was getting comfortable, she merely shrugged.

"I told you, I wanted to take a nap." And that was exactly what she did. Within an hour, her head drooped, slipping along his shoulder until it found a stable spot against a dip in his bicep.

"I see she's taking advantage of you," Diem said with some mirth, falling back on the trail to ride alongside him. Hikoshu glanced down at the top of her head, noting how relaxed she now felt.

"Well, I'm glad she's using me for something. I'm just surprised how upfront she was about it."

Diem laughed and rubbed at his jaw, his beard not so neat as it'd been in previous days. "Yeah, Yan-lin doesn't beat around her bushes. She's pretty good about beating right over them." In fact, they all looked pretty ragged. But that was usually how it went out on the road. If there was anything Hikoshu could miss about Omashu, it was civilization and hot baths.

Which sparked a question he had been wanting to ask for a while. "Diem, why did you come back here? To us?"

"Honest answer?"

"You have a dishonest one?"

That made him laugh again as he paused to beat the black trail dust out of his pants leg. "Tell me something, Hikoshu. Do you believe in fate?"

That was an odd question. Especially since the answer should be obvious. "I'm the Avatar. Everything I do pretty much revolves around the concept of fate."

"Well," Diem continued, "I kind of buy into fate, myself. And after I left you two, I got to thinking. I mean, you needed some way to reach the sandbenders. Somehow, that led you to Yan-lin, who then led you to me. Most people who believe in fate would say that the Avatar landing on their doorstump is something that only fate could bring."

"And is that what you say?" he asked curiously, which made Diem shrug as he looked out at the distance.

"I don't know. But I realized that if someday, somebody asks me, 'Who are you?' I don't want to be the man who turned away the Avatar because he was afraid." He glanced back at Hikoshu. "Know what I mean?"

Kind of, if from the opposite side. Hikoshu didn't want to be known as the man who turned away from the world because he was afraid. It was unfortunate that all of his choices seemed to be based on fear. Reluctant to consider that, he gave himself a shake, and Yan-lin moaned softly at the movement.

"What are you afraid of, Diem?" he said, shifting the topic away from him. Diem in turn frowned, as if he too was now thinking about a subject he'd rather let alone.

"Suppose I should tell you, since we're headed that way." He nodded toward the empty path before them. "I had to leave my tribe when I was younger. The general helped me escape."

"I gathered as much. But what made you leave?"

"I didn't agree with all their beliefs," Diem said vaguely, suddenly growing guarded. "Ever felt that sometimes, you just don't fit in?"

"On occasion." Even if Diem didn't recognize the understatement, he could probably hear the dryness in Hikoshu's voice. Grinning, the leather worker shook his head.

"Yeah, guess you would. Well, despite my best attempts at it, I simply didn't fit in. My father was a freedman—an artisan by class—and as a consequence, I was destined to be the same. But try as I might, I soon came to realize that I wasn't going to be who they wanted me to be, and I wasn't going to be able to change, either. General Gi-Luon then offered me an opportunity to get away from that before I got trapped in a role I wasn't made for. And I took it."

"Do you ever look back?"

"Not at all," Diem said swiftly. "You may not have much of a high opinion of Omashu. And like any other place, it's got its share of faults. But what you consider an evil city, some of us—a lot of us—consider a haven. A dream we couldn't have anywhere else. I had my future laid out for me, a fate if anyone could call it that. And Omashu allowed me to change it." His face was somber, and the smile he flashed Hikoshu was even sadder. "Sometimes it's hard to see the good in things, but you might like to try."

"I think I might, too." He tried to make his own smile reassuring. It was true; he hated Omashu, and he'd vowed on more than one occasion to save it from itself or raze the whole thing. But maybe he was only seeing it from one point-of-view. Maybe—like with Yan-lin—he had to find some good in it, too.

They fell silent after that, though Diem lingered beside him. The trail had become much more defined, and Hikoshu could easily follow it. So they spent the rest of the waning day next to each other, saying little but enjoying the afternoon anyhow. There was an ease in Diem's manner that was calming, such as the way he slouched back in his saddle or how he held his reins loosely in two fingers of one hand. His head seemed to rock with the rhythmic gait of his ostrich-horse, as if he were silently agreeing or entranced in a song only he could hear. Quickly, Hikoshu grew accustomed to the man's relaxed demeanor, to the point that he felt he'd known Diem for years rather than just a week.

Close to sunset, the trail cut through a field of golden-flowered shrubs, which seemed to delight Diem. He abruptly sat straighter in his saddle, then looked to Hikoshu with a certain mischievous glimmer. Jerking his head toward one of the bushes, he nodded for him to inspect the flowers more closely. Hikoshu did as much as he could without bending over, as Yan-lin still balanced against his arm.

The flowers weren't flowers at all—they were clusters of butterflies. Struck by Diem's sudden enthusiasm, Hikoshu realized what the sandbender wanted him to do. Carefully, so as not to disturb Yan-lin, he lowered one hand toward the trail and bended a breeze across the tops of the shrubs.

The butterflies took off like a fluttering wave, their bronze wings flashing in the sunset. That golden wave swept over the field as more and more butterflies took to the air, the breathtaking sight filling the sky and startling the ostrich-horses so much that they stopped their trot. Diem laughed heartily, his voice carrying his joy.

"Copper fritillaries. They're migrating late this year." The deluge of butterflies cleared enough for him to catch a glimpse of Diem, who was dotted with a number of the insects. Diem must have spied him, too, for his eyes grew wide with sudden awe. "Hikoshu."

Hikoshu glanced down at himself, only to find he was covered in butterflies, as if he wore a blanket of copper. They had spared Yan-lin, who still slept soundly, as well as the ostrich-horse, but there was barely an inch of cloth visible on him. Uncomfortably he shrugged, though it didn't dislodge any of his new friends.

"It's an Avatar thing," Hikoshu said, unsure if the explanation would make any sense. He'd had butterflies do this before. And spiny-eyed bees, which the latter had proved to be a disaster. "They won't go away until after dark." But he had no desire to wait that long, so he pressed his fist into his palm, while still holding both the reins and Yan-lin, and created a globe of wind that plucked the fritillaries from his clothes. The sudden burst of air startled Ben-Pao, who threw himself forward in a mad, short sprint, and woke up Yan-lin, who dug her nails into Hikoshu's thighs as if convinced they were going off of a cliff. Her terror sent Diem into a fit of guffaws, and her bleary-eyed confusion at the ebbing tide of butterfly wings brought a grin from Hikoshu.

All in all, it made for a pleasant start to the evening.

The following day, Diem stopped them early to teach Hikoshu some earthbending, much to Yan-lin's frustration.

"If we delay any longer, we won't make Aksu until tomorrow." She'd seated herself, cross-legged, next to the pen Diem had created for the ostrich-horses. He simply tossed her his canteen.

"Hold onto that. We're going to need it in a moment." Then he turned to Hikoshu as he undid his leather belt. "You might want to strip if you want to keep your clothes clean."

"How much dirtier can they get?" he said with a frown. He was pretty sure his robes had been green when he left Gangzhou. Now, they were some weird shade of yellow-brown.

"Just warning you. But you should definitely take off your shoes." A moment later, Diem was barefoot and naked to his waist, his skin a dusky color that was about a shade lighter than that of a Water Tribesman. His physique, too, resembled that of a waterbender, very much unlike the earthbenders Hikoshu had seen in Omashu. His muscles were smooth and lean, underemphasized and far less rugged than his fellow countrymen. Made more for movement, he lacked the stocky build of an Earth Kingdom man.

Mindful of Yan-lin's eyes on them, Hikoshu took off his remaining boot and what shreds were left of the bandage around his other foot. Diem didn't even wait for him to finish, already widening his stance with his knees slightly bent.

"Now most people think—earthbenders included—that earth is about strength and grounding. But they'd be wrong. Earth takes many forms. It can be hard, like stone, but in its purer forms, it can be malleable like gold. If it's fine enough, it's like water, and if it's soft enough, it's like air. The key to earthbending is understanding how earth can change, and changing your bending with it."

"Adaptation," Hikoshu said, surprised. "Like the waterbenders."

Diem grinned. "The problem with all benders, not just the earth ones, is they believe that we fall into categories. But categories are an illusion. We can say that waterbenders are adaptors, and firebenders are powerful, but that's not all that true. Every bending form borrows a little from the others, and it's the understanding of _all_ forms that give a person power. It's what gives _you_ power, Avatar."

Hikoshu stared at him, mouth agape. He'd never considered until now how right Diem was. With every bending art he learned, Hikoshu had to carry over some knowledge of the form before. They were all interconnected.

Yan-lin was the first to speak. "Wow. Diem…that's really profound." She sounded sincere. "I didn't know you were such a philosopher."

Diem puffed his chest proudly, straightening. "Well, of all the benders, the sandbenders are most in tune with the unity of the bending arts. After all, we have to use earth that flows like water, burns like fire, and floats like air. So we pretty much have to master every form, anyway."

"Can we skip about three-fourths of that lesson, then?" Hikoshu rubbed at his neck, glancing at the sky to judge the time. "I've already got those covered."

"Today, I'm just teaching you the basics." He assumed his original stance. "How to find water."

"I'm not following you. We're earthbending…for water?" At Diem's nod, he gestured wide, toward the expansive plain. "Were you planning to earthbend a river?"

"I'm sure you've seen a well, haven't you?"

"Yes, but…"

"Well, that's what we're doing. A quick, messy well. So, again, you might want to strip." Quirking his eyebrows, Diem mimed removing his robes, his hands pulling at invisible lapels. Hikoshu spared him a level look before complying. Though the temperature was somewhere between cool and comfortably warm, his skin still prickled upon touching air. He thought, perhaps, it was the breeze. Or maybe the way Yan-lin was staring at him. Severely, he made himself focus, and emulated Diem's prepared stance.

"Alright, so the first thing to know about earthbending is that it requires the bender to be strong."

"I thought you said it didn't have anything to do with strength."

"Well, my speech wouldn't have sounded so eloquent if I said it did." Again, a grin that made his green eyes gleam with mischief. "You don't need physical strength—you need strength of will. Strength of self. Since rock is hard, it will not respond to you unless you _tell_ it to move."

Hikoshu glanced at the ground below him. "Move, rock." Yan-lin snorted at the joke, though Diem didn't laugh. He rolled his eyes, bent his arms, and pushed his hands toward the sky. A perfect, circular hole burst from the ground in front of Hikoshu, dirt and plants showering him as the earth erupted.

"Strength of will," Diem said firmly as Hikoshu spat the grit out of his mouth and wiped his eyes clear. "It doesn't matter how much rock you have to move—the amount of strength needed to move a boulder is the same needed for a grain of sand. But it's the _quality_ of strength that's different. It's easy to be stronger than a pebble, but a mountain is much more intimidating."

"So…I just have to think I'm stronger than the mountain?" Brushing the rest of the dirt off his chest, he gazed into the newly-created hole. It was dark, but not deep.

"Exactly. You must be stronger than whatever it is you're bending." Diem bended a small rock into his hand, then tossed it idly, catching it against his palm.

"Alright." Confidence wasn't a problem for Hikoshu, and so he shrugged. "What else?"

"Nothing else. You've just learned the basics of earthbending."

That caught him by surprise, and for a moment, he thought Diem was teasing him again. "Wait…you mean…that's it?"

Diem stared at him blankly, then turned to Yan-lin. "He _is_ pretty cocky, isn't he?" She smirked in answer, making the comment rankle for Hikoshu. But Diem had already moved on, facing him once more. "Yes. That's all there is. But seeing as it's one of the _hardest_ elements to learn, I think you better give it a try before you decide if 'that's it.'"

Hikoshu imagined the other three elements would be impossible for Diem to learn, but kept the quip to himself. Instead, he emulated Diem's gestures, bending at the knees and folding up his arms, then focused on a new spot on the ground.

It was if a New Year firework had exploded. Earth flew everywhere, and only Diem's deft earthbending as well as Hikoshu's airbending saved them all from being pelted. When the dust finally cleared, the spot he was aiming for was now a large crater.

Yan-lin whistled as she lowered her arms, a fine layer of dirt coating her. "That's the worst bending I think I've ever seen you do." That made Hikoshu blush in both mortification and wounded pride. But before he could find a retort suitable enough, Diem signaled for his attention.

"Alright, there's such a thing as too much strength. Which you might have." His grin didn't seem so friendly now. "Earthbending is an art of finesse." His eyes narrowed as he held up his hands, his fingers and thumbs touching as he searched for some transcendental meaning in the sky. "Many think it's all about throwing big rocks. But the most lethal moves are often caused by the tiniest stones. You just have to learn how to apply your strength correctly."

"Diem, you're teaching him how to dig a well," Yan-lin said, finally showing some impatience. "Not spout metaphysical haikus. Can't we speed this up?"

With such critical commentary of his lesson, Diem looked offended. "You can't rush art, Yan-lin."

Nor did he rush. In fact, the earthbending lesson went long into the afternoon. Diem insisted that Hikoshu be the one to dig a suitable well, so that even though the leather worker had built at least three decent wells by the time Hikoshu had made one, he'd filled them up and refused to use them. Instead, he chose to rely on Hikoshu's uneven, slightly tilted hole.

"Now, here's the fun part," Diem said, kneeling next to it. "We'll create a stone bucket to haul the water up, and then find a decent sandy loam to form a water scr—" He cut off with a frown as Hikoshu bended water from the well, its muddy form roiling around them. "Well, that's not very fun."

"Fun for me. Hey, is it possible to bend the dirt _out_ of the water? I could hold onto the water while you remove the mud."

Diem actually seemed disappointed when it worked, and the now-crystal water slipped into the canteen at Hikoshu's command. He must have really been proud of his purification system, but Hikoshu was muddy and tired. And he didn't need to learn to make waterscreens when he could simply waterbend.

Dusk had fallen by the time they finished, the sky a stunning mixture of colors from blazing gold to deep purple. With the impending night, a cool wind rolled off the mountains, making Hikoshu desperately want to dress. Unfortunately, though, he was still caked in red-brown mud, which looked like it would take a good scrubbing to remove.

When he made an offhand comment about it to Diem, the earthbender grinned. And with just a jerk of his hands, the dried mud flew off of Hikoshu, taking a good amount of body hair with it. "Earthbenders clean up fast."

"But not very well." As his nerves slowly calmed from the abrupt depilation, Hikoshu regarded his forearms. Where the mud had been, the skin was now stained red.

"Well, earthbending can only do so much. The rest you take care of with a nice bath." Diem's grin turned whimsical as he stretched his arms behind his head. "Good thing we got this well dug. Plenty of water now."

They made camp beside the well that evening, once Yan-lin woke up from her boredom-induced nap and declared that the Aksu gates would be closed long before they came within sight of the town. That meant their trip would have to extend into the next day, but for once, Hikoshu didn't feel pressured. They were within a day of finding sandbenders, and that seemed good enough progress to him. So for one evening, he allowed himself to relax, soaking in the heat of a fire Diem only now felt safe enough to let him build.

Dinner was at its most meager, as they were now using the seed Diem had brought for his ostrich-horse to make a thin gruel. Yan-lin handled it the worst, her expression souring at the unpleasant smell, and she was forced to turn away her own ration.

"You have to eat," Hikoshu insisted, and she gave him a look that said she didn't have to do any such thing.

"I'll eat in Aksu."

"Look, I know it's not a high-end Omashu meal made for royalty, but as long as you pretend—"

The next look she gave him told him to stop talking.

Diem, as usual, ignored their squabbling, his attention occupied by Ben-Pao's saddle. The weight of two people had taken its toll, and one of the stirrup flaps had torn. There wasn't much Diem could do out in the plains, when civilization was still a day's ride away, so he struggled to mend what he could with the few tools that he carried.

"Maybe I could find some wild herbs to flavor it."

"Hikoshu." Yan-lin imbued her words with the weariness of a full week on the road. "I don't want any. Why are you so eager to see that I eat?"

"Because it doesn't make sense. We have food, even if it's not all that appetizing—"

"Frankly, I think this has more to do with your paternalistic control issues than my appetite."

"My what? Fine, if you don't want to eat—"

"—I don't—"

"—I'm not going to force you."

Yan-lin stared at him like he was ridiculous to assume he could force her to do anything. Chagrinned, Hikoshu found himself agreeing.

"Hey, stop fighting," Diem said, catching them both by surprise. The command was unnecessary, as Hikoshu had already conceded silently and Yan-lin had claimed her victory with sullen reticence. Instead, it startled them that Diem had commented at all, as his general philosophy was one of non-involvement. The arguments usually ended quickly after they began, and Diem's easy-going manner didn't lend him to annoyance. "Stop fighting," he repeated. They watched him quizzically as he pushed the saddle from his lap and stood.

"What is it?" Yan-lin asked with more than a little trepidation. His strange behavior had introduced a nervous tension, and Hikoshu leaned forward to extinguish the fire. Diem shushed them again, however, and gestured for him to leave it.

"Do you hear that?" He was mesmerized by something outside of the firelight.

Hikoshu looked out on the lonely night, and listened. There were the obvious sounds—the chirping night insects, the whisper of wind across the heads of overgrown grass. Under those were the not-so-obvious sounds, the ones that Hikoshu knew no one but he could hear. He might not have been in touch with his more spiritual side, but that spiritual side still existed. As a result, he felt connections other people missed. Most of the time, they manifested just below his awareness as an instinct, directing him how to act. But sometimes, as with the butterflies, they appeared as something more. When it was quiet, and he concentrated hard, Hikoshu could _hear _the earth: a hum so low that it seemed to make everything quake as if dancing, or breathing. The energy would swell and abate, like his own _chi_, and in his younger years, he'd suspected that he might be able to tap into it. But if it were possible, Hikoshu simply wasn't trained to do it, so he marveled from afar at the unheard chorus of a living world.

That sound was there this evening, though he knew Diem wasn't listening to it. Instead, barely on the edge of hearing, another sound floated from the wilds. It was a long, unwavering note, pure enough that Hikoshu could hardly discern it from the general hum of life. Moments later, a second note joined it, equally constant but significantly higher in tone. The addition roused Diem, and he closed his eyes with a pleasant smile as he swayed in time to the duet.

"Prairie gophers," Yan-lin said, looking to Hikoshu. "They're very musical creatures. Especially at night." By this time several other gophers had chimed in, and the night came alive with the distant choir. Diem's sway grew livelier as well; soon he was singing along wordlessly to the strange harmony, which made Yan-lin laugh. This caught his attention, and he danced over to her, drawing her up from the ground by the hand. Yan-lin went willingly, twirling into his arms and barely avoiding the fire in the process.

Hikoshu watched, perplexed, as the two danced. It was a silly dance, without technique or form, dictated by Diem's whims. He caught Yan-lin against his chest and spun her around, causing her to giggle childishly as she stepped quickly from one foot to the other. Diem, in turn, kept his eyes closed with an almost meditative peace, guided by night breezes and the prairie gopher song. Then suddenly, it was as if they heard that silent thrum of energy, as they moved in time to its ebbs and flows. Even the campfire seemed to surge with the music, and in those few seconds, everything in the world was in perfect harmony. The spirituality that Hikoshu so often ignored struck him, suffusing his mind.

_**Miyo**_**.** The world flashed white. She was injured, and it was cold—freezing. Her hands hurt—no, one hand, a bleeding gash through its tattoo. The snow tunnel under Rajio Bay was collapsing on top of her, and she couldn't breathe. No—not Rajio Bay. Miyo wasn't under the ice, but on the Northern bluffs. The snow surrounding her wasn't on top of her, but was being held against her nonetheless, suffocating her. Someone was commanding the snow—a Shaman. _Natquik!_

Yan-lin grabbed his arm, abruptly ending the trance. "Come dance!" Hikoshu resisted the movement, his thoughts still locked in that horrific moment as Miyo was dying. Was it a vision of the present? No, he felt like it hadn't happened yet. Something was terribly wrong with Miyo, but for now at least, she wasn't in danger.

But it also meant that she might soon be.

"Hikoshu?" Yan-lin asked when he didn't respond, the gaiety fading from her face. Suddenly, impatience and anxiety flooded him, forcing him to stand.

"Sorry," he mumbled, leaving the camp before they could stop him. His task now seemed more urgent, and the peace of the evening had dissipated. They had to get to the sandbenders; he had to get to Miyo.

Yan-lin caught him outside of the firelight—out of earshot of Diem, who watched them without following. "Hikoshu, what's wrong?"

"Nothing," he snapped, shaking her off. "I just don't want to dance." Yan-lin looked wounded.

"You don't think Diem and I…"

"Think you and Diem what?" Though the answer occurred to him almost immediately. She suspected he was jealous. "No, not that. Go ahead and dance with him; I don't care." The hurt in her eyes only worsened. Taking a deep breath, Hikoshu made himself stop. He was still reacting to the vision, when he wasn't even sure what it meant or why it had happened. But what could he do when he was stuck in the middle of the Earth Kingdom? How could he protect Miyo when she was a thousand leagues away? Once more, he felt powerless. "I'm sorry, Yan-lin, I didn't mean it that way."

"No, don't apologize. I didn't think—" she cut off awkwardly, and the waning sounds of prairie-gophers filled the silence between them. "I just wanted to make sure everything was fine."

It wasn't. "It's hard to remember when we're out here, away from everything, that there are people who are depending on me. People who are dying. And even if I can't see them, I'm still fighting for them. I simply don't have the luxury to be distracted by…"

"By me," she finished. Hikoshu didn't answer. He didn't know how to. "Well, then. I'm sorry for distracting you." She moved to leave.

"Wait." Hikoshu tried to seize her arm, but she lithely avoided his grip.

"Hikoshu, I know what it means to be bound by duty. So don't think you have to explain that you're working toward something greater than yourself. I swore I'd do everything for you, and this is exactly why. The Avatar can't be distracted from his purpose. There's too much at risk."

"But after this—"

"There is no 'after this.' You're the Avatar, as you'll always be. I have no illusions about that." Her expression was both sad and comforting. "If you forgive me for everything I've done to you, then I'll have accomplished more than I ever hoped for."

Had he forgiven her? Nothing he felt about Yan-lin made any sense, least of all that. Ever astute, Yan-lin saw his ambivalence and smiled.

"Goodnight, Hikoshu." She left him for the fire.

* * *

**A/N: **Back to Miyo and Natquik with the next chapter. Will post it tomorrow. Because I'm going to force myself to work through the night. Thanks to everyone who is sticking through my hiatuses (hiati?)!


	29. Ch 28: The Northern Water Tribe

**Chapter 28 - The Northern Water Tribe**

* * *

"Natquik, we're here."

The announcement was unnecessary; Natquik had been scanning the ocean a mile below them for hours, alert for any signs of civilization. So he hadn't missed the ice bluffs, or the blue gouge in it that represented the Northern Water Tribe.

Not that he'd been terribly eager to find the ice city, but three weeks of travel had finally left its mark, and he was weary enough to want it to end. Shuffling toward the front of the saddle, he leaned against its edge like he had so many times before. Miyo sat on the bison's neck, her hair shifting loosely about her shoulders in the wind, occasionally revealing the orange habit she'd resumed wearing.

Accordingly, she must have been cold, but she didn't complain. Nor did she turn to look at him, her legs folded underneath her as she maintained a mystifying balance despite her inability to airbend. Past her shoulders, Tehsa turned her nose downward, and the Northern city rose into view.

"Been a long time since we've seen that sight," he said. Almost four years, to be exact. The city from the sky looked a lot different than it did on the sea. At that height, it was a circular cut in the tundra, formed in the base of an enormous bay. There was an ice wall that protected it from the water—a barrier etched with the crescent-and-waves mark of the Water Tribes, as if that insignia gave the city behind it power.

The city itself rested just above the sea level, situated at the end of locks and large canals that were visible even from that height. The actual buildings of the town proper were made of ice and built on tiers that rose in a pyramidal fashion, much like the city of Omashu. And at its top, surrounded by a platform of waterfalls, rose the kashiq—a large ice palace that fell short of the icy cliffs that encircled the city.

"We'll land in a moment," she said stiffly, still not looking at him. He wondered how many more times she would look at him. How long until her face happened to be a memory. Pushing the sad thoughts away, he focused on more pragmatic matters.

"Do you want to warm yourself first?" Natquik suspected her face and hands were raw, especially since she wasn't covering up. The tribesmen were going to know something was wrong if she looked wind-burned.

Miyo shook her head. "Just hold on tight." Tehsa abruptly dipped lower.

The bison point was on the outskirts of the city—an ice platform, marked with the spiraling sigil of the Air Nomads, that stood above a canal. It was designed so that the bison could easily be transported via the canal toward the stables on the north side of the city. Though only occasionally used, and mostly by the Northern Monks, the canal still held about twelve bison points. When they landed, there were already men on the platform. The watchtowers that lined the ice cliffs meant that the tribesmen knew everyone who approached well before they arrived. Created during the war fifty years ago, they were meant to keep an eye out for dragons. Though the fear was unfounded; as Hikoshu had told him, dragons couldn't fly that far north.

Tehsa knelt as soon as they hit the ice so that Miyo could slip off of her neck. She brushed the bison's fur out of its eye in gratitude and joined Natquik to meet their welcoming party. Three warriors and two waterbenders stood at the edge of the platform, each wearing specific coats that marked their profession as well as their rank. The warriors had nearly identical, decorative bone buttons that extended from their neck to the hem of the coat, just above their knees. A mantle of ocean-striker feathers sewn into the coats marked their 'firsts,' such as their first snow leopard kill or their first evening alone in the tundra. The benders had less elaborate coats, with white strips of fur that ran from either shoulder to their longer hems, indicating that they were a level just above 'apprentice.'

Miyo approached them slowly, almost putting too much effort into hiding how uncomfortable she felt. Not since her hostile visit to the North Pole four years before had she been there, and bitter memories obviously still lingered. Swinging her pack from his shoulder, Natquik distracted her by handing her both the tightly woven satchel as well as her staff. She took them with an absent smile as he brushed past her.

"_Angakkuq Natqik_," the closest man said, only his eyes visible above a swath of blue fabric. "We weren't expecting you by sky bison."

"I like to make an entrance." Natquik gave him a lopsided grin, then peered past his shoulder at the second bender. "Is that you, Hito?"

Hito, wearing one of the waterbending coats, grinned and pulled back his own scarf to reveal a mustached smile that had lost a few teeth since last Natquik saw him, nearly six years before. "One and the same."

"Guess they got around to raising you a level?"

The first man laughed. "Only to save him the embarrassment of training with his son."

Hito looked both properly offended and thoroughly amused. But before either of them could come up with a retort, Natquik received a sharp blow to the back of the head. It wasn't painful, but it was certainly shocking enough to make him jerk around.

Miyo was already recovering her staff from where it had hit him. "Oh, sorry," she said unapologetically. "I must've lost focus." Red-eared and red-nosed, she gave him a meaningful look.

"Are you here to take us to the chief?" Natquik asked, turning back to their guides. He'd received Miyo's message clearly; get on with it before she froze to death.

"I will escort you to the chief," the first bender agreed. "Hito will see to your bison."

"Well, then," Natquik gestured toward the ice bridge that connected the platform to the quays, "lead the way." The bender nodded, and with the three warriors accompanying them, they left Tehsa alone on the platform for Hito to handle. Out of sight of their party, Natquik quickly clasped Miyo's hand. It was brief, mostly to remind her that he was there if she needed him. Sensing that support, Miyo shot him a look of warm affection, standing in contrast to her frozen skin.

The journey to the kashiq was a little arduous. Most tribesmen used a complicated system of canals and locks to traverse the city, the large waterways filled with umiaks, sampans, and catamarans of various shapes and sizes. This was the fastest means of travel, but the group of seven instead used the vast number of walkways. They crossed fountain plazas and finely crafted ice bridges, the level of technology so astounding in comparison to the city's southern sister that the Northern Water Tribe more closely resembled the Earth Kingdom to Natquik. It was, he knew, a result of the North's heavy dependence on international trade. They borrowed the ideas of other nations and made them their own. Consequently, their connection to the South survived only as a nostalgic past, a cultural inclination, and a love of tradition.

Natquik had not seen any of this in the years since meeting Hikoshu, and the sight—as always—was a little overwhelming. This world wasn't the same as the lonely dunes of the south, or the awe-inspiring glaciers of ice. It was tamed wilderness, carved into a cold harmony that seemed to blend the primitive and the cultivated to an untrained eye. But to Natquik's eye, the city was disjointed, clinging to a way of life that it should have long since abandoned. He felt all at once out of place and perfectly welcome, as if its citizens couldn't see the disjointedness anymore either. This encapsulated why he could never call the north home. Why he was loath to do so now.

Through the center of the metropolis cut a set of wide stairs that led to the kashiq, sitting atop a round pool. As they moved through the shadows of the totems lining the steps, Natquik glanced over at Miyo. She was the brightest thing in the ice city, as a noon sun set her robes ablaze despite the two weeks worth of grime. Her eyes were trained on the kashiq, haunted by memories, but at least the exertion of climbing had seemed to warm her.

The doors opened from the inside as if swinging of their own accord; their guard didn't react to the majesty of the finely carved ice, as tall as ten men. Miyo, however, turned a shade paler under the reddened skin of her cheeks, and for a moment looked as if she might faint from the power of her own ghosts. Natquik considered taking her arm—to steady her—but then thought better. She was fighting her own internal battle, and if anyone should see weakness in her now, it might be too much for her to handle.

The inner chamber of the kashiq was immense, easily able to hold twelve of the largest kashiqs in the south. There was more focus on embellishments, the floor bearing an enormous sigil of the two Water Tribes united—the moon and the waves, North and South. It was then re-iced so that it was smooth, and above their heads, delicate stalactites had been curled into blue ribbons of ice. The ceiling had been frosted so that it sparkled from the light of windows piercing the kashiq on every level. Between those rows of windows were totem heads, designed to stare emptily on all ceremonies below. To Natquik they looked lifeless, very much unlike the totems of the South. They held none of the respective spirits they were supposed to represent, as if they'd been carved merely for intimidation and not to remind the tribespeople of those to whom they owed their daily existence. Studying them, Natquik felt a pang of regret. He suspected the totems' creator had wanted to give them life, but in a world where the spirits were barely remembered, the effort rang hollow.

Opposite them, at the other end of the kashiq, was possibly the most ostentatious feature of all—a waterfall that cascaded from nearly the top level, forming a cloud of mist at its base. It fed into the pool outside on which the kashiq sat, and then spilled into the canals. The tribespeople considered it the source of the city, where all of their culture started and ended. It represented their strength, resilience, and ability to recreate. Resultantly, it rained behind a wide, terraced dais, on which would sit the key leaders of the Northern Water Tribe.

On which sat such figures now—seven in total. As the guards peeled away to leave them before the dais, one of those figures immediately jumped up and ran to them. Even Natquik required a few moments to recognize Sahani, which was enough time for her to fling herself into his arms with a gleeful laugh. The action was very un-princess-like, but Sahani had always been a little less like a proper Water Tribe Princess and a little more like her mother.

"Natquik!" she breathed into his coat, hugging him so tight that he nearly lost his balance. Clutching her, he grinned as his satchel fell from his arm.

"Hey, snowflake." The younger girl beamed up at him in response. No—not a girl anymore. Sahani, who had been sixteen the last time he'd seen her, was now a lovely woman. She still carried the enthusiasm of a child, her crisp blue eyes sparkling like the frosted ceiling, but her soft features had matured. She was elegant, her hair plaited and threaded through crystal baubles that clinked down her back, and her coat—no longer a child's coat—now hung past her knees. How Tuluk had ever produced such a beauty of a daughter, Natquik couldn't guess. He hadn't passed on any of his imposing presence.

As if summoned, a second person approached them from the dais, his body as muscled as a wolf's. Chief Tuluk also had the menace of a wolf, his lips pulling across his teeth as if at any moment he could launch into a snarl. Not that Natquik had ever seen him do so; even now, Tuluk wore an expression of fatherly love. But one still had the sense he could just as easily turn.

"Natquik, it's been a long time." Tuluk's voice echoed loudly on the roof of the kashiq and overwhelmed the sound of the falls behind him. "I feared you wouldn't make it with the storms." He reached for Natquik's arm, which he wrested from Sahani in order to grasp Tuluk's elbow. Instead, the more sizeable man surprised him by pulling him into another hug. Awkward, Natquik didn't even think to hug him back.

"It was pretty close," he said clumsily, trying to extricate himself. Tuluk finally got the hint and drew back, though the smile hadn't faded from his wolfish face. Jerking his head toward the dais—a movement that sent his thousand beaded braids of hair dancing—Tuluk motioned for him to follow.

"Come. Some others are eager to meet you, too." Then, just to make sure Natquik would do so, he wrapped an arm around his shoulders and guided him forward.

Two women sat on the bottom level of the dais, though they stood as Natquik and Tuluk neared. One was Chieftess Inuma, whom he easily identified by her surprising resemblance to Sahani. Almost her husband's height and as sleek as an icicle, she held a courtly carriage. Yet from the outer corners of her eyes to the edge of her jaw were two straight, dark blue tattoos, belying her southern origins. They marked her as a master waterbender, a more adeptly trained fighter than even the North's warriors. Her hair pulled back into a tight, looped braid high on her head, she ducked her shoulders in a respectful bow.

"Natquik. Forgive my daughter for her behavior. She's missed you terribly."

"Chieftess Inuma." He also bowed his head. "Hinaat."

The other woman, larger than Inuma and with a mesh of fine wrinkles that made her look quite a bit older, clucked in disapproval. "You will soon be my brother's son, Natquik. Call me _atak_."

Before Natquik could respond, Inuma dropped her polite distance and pulled him into a hug much like Tuluk's, her body warm. "We were worried you wouldn't make your own wedding."

Sahani's gasp caught his attention, and Natquik looked behind him. In the course of introductions, she had found Miyo, who had faded into the background as if she could melt unseen into the ice. Sahani, however, would have never let that happen, and she'd dragged Miyo into the same kind of embrace that she'd given him. Miyo's expression wavered between discomfort, joy, and sadness, but Natquik knew only he could see it. To everyone else, she was simply practicing the subdued civility of a proper Air Nun.

Sahani had just drawn back from the hug and now clasped her hands, holding them up to the light. "Sister Miyo, you're so cold."

Natquik quickly interrupted, pulling Miyo away before Sahani could examine her frozen fingers. "Let her breathe." He infused his voice with dryness as he drew Miyo toward the dais. She seemed grateful, until realizing that he was simply thrusting her toward a more visible audience. "Chief Tuluk, I don't know if you remember Air Nun Miyo. I accompanied her on the mission to the Fire Nation to save Sahani." He gave her shoulder a gentle, unwitnessed squeeze. "And she was quite possibly the only reason we succeeded."

"Nun Miyo," he said warmly, "thank you so much for bringing Natquik to the North. He would have never made the Ice Cutting Festival without you. Please, stay for the wedding. It will be quite a celebration." Again, there was no perceptible change in Miyo's demeanor, but Natquik could read the hesitation anyway. The way she crooked her head slightly, as if torn on how to respond, and the way her lips twitched before she found an answer. Suddenly, he knew what she was going to say.

Natquik precluded her objection, gesturing swiftly to Inuma. "Miyo, you remember Chieftess Inuma, of course." The nod Inuma spared her was neither as respectful nor as affectionate as the one she'd given Natquik. Which wasn't surprising; the last time Inuma and Miyo met, the chieftess had nearly killed her. "Next to her is Hin—" he cut off at the larger woman's frown "—my Aunt Hinaat, the Head Healer of the Northern Water Tribe." That pleased her immensely, and her frown turned into a satisfied smile, furrowing those fine wrinkles.

Natquik then looked to the dais just above them where three men sat cross-legged and stoic, silent spectators to the familial scene. "These men are Urumkai, Chief Shaman, Imnek, Warrior Chief, and—" again, he paused, squinting at the third person with a frown "—Kiviak, the cousin of my future bride."

Urumkai and Imnek were both older men, though different as winter and summer. Kiviak, however, couldn't be much past the age of eighteen, which was why his presence had caught Natquik so off-guard. He had seen the boy intermittently over the years, initially when Kiviak began his squeaky-voiced adolescence in the North and then during his occasional forays to the South Pole. Each time he never seemed to change, with his shaggy brown hair and impish grin. One would not guess he was Tuluk's nephew, as he didn't have a trace of wolfishness in him. If he was any animal, he would've been a koala-otter. Currently, he wore the coat of an intermediate waterbender, with its stripes sewn to the hem. That was in fact what had surprised Natquik so much. In terms of rank, Kiviak wasn't quite qualified to be sitting with the three Chiefs.

"I'm the one who saw you from the towers," the young man quickly supplied, as if he could sense Natquik's misgivings. "I came straight to the kashiq."

Natquik arched a brow at that, finding it difficult to mask his uncertainty. "They're letting you man a watchtower now? If there's any sign that the world's at peace, I suppose that'd be it." The joke made Tuluk and Imnek both chuckle, and even Kiviak grinned. Next to him, Urumkai cleared his throat.

"Chief, I humbly remind you of the reason you called us here." Nothing about Urumkai seemed humble. Tense and stolid, with gray hair peppered black and a coat of mottled age, the much older waterbender watched the proceedings with visible disdain. Of course, Urumkai had shown very few other emotions for as long as Natquik had known him. He was a large rock of a man, unforgiving and unrelenting.

"For the sake of time," Urumkai continued, his arms folded across his chest, "we should dismiss the women and bring Shaman Natquik up to date on the affairs of our tribe." The heavy implication hinted at the topic of discussion, though Natquik didn't have to stretch his imagination far. They would have received word of the attacks in the south long before their arrival.

Tuluk sobered at the suggestion, his grin fading as he turned to Inuma and Hinaat. "Yes, of course. Wife, could you please take Sahani and the Air Nun Miyo to—"

"Miyo should stay," Natquik interrupted, and they all looked to him in surprise. Even Miyo. "I think she's involved in this, and there are no rules against airbenders in the kashiq."

Miyo suddenly clasped his arm, leaning close to whisper near his ear. "Natquik, that really isn't necessary."

"It's necessary to me." He didn't let her finish her protest, catching her eye. "How can you help if you don't hear what's going on?"

Outside of their quiet exchange, the tribesmen were having their own. "I have no objection to Sister Miyo's presence," Tuluk said, sweeping his gaze over the dais, "if it doesn't displease the Shamans or my fellow Chief." Urumkai stared back stonily. Imnek, on the other hand, shrugged and waved a hand. Younger than Urumkai but still prematurely white, he wore the vestments of a warrior, replete with bone ribbing along the coat and a feathered mantle.

"No objection. If Air Nun Miyo is truly involved, then she'll benefit by the discussion."

"Perhaps even add some insight to our situation," Hinaat said, taking a seat once more on the dais. Though she was a woman, she was also a Shaman, and therefore exempt from all rules that usually applied to women.

With one last agreement left, all eyes moved to Urumkai.

He slipped into the Water Tribe language, his voice icy. "_I would rather not have a foreigner listening to private Tribal affairs_." After such a declaration, the room turned icy as well.

Natquik wanted to continue the argument in the common tongue for Miyo's sake, but by switching languages, Urumkai had wordlessly mandated that the conversation not include her. "_Sister Miyo is a personal friend to the Avatar. She was with us the night the village was attacked—_"

"_Mind yourself, Natquik,_" Imnek said. "_There are women still in the room."_ How frustrating. The gender divisions of the north bordered on the ridiculous sometimes. However, Inuma was already moving to usher Sahani out of the room, as if she also agreed that this wasn't something meant for feminine ears.

Natquik pressed on. "_She sacrificed a lot to bring me here." _More than they'd ever know. "_She deserves to know why."_

"I have lessons, Tuluk," Urumkai said impatiently, almost over the top of Natquik. "If your future son continues to waste my time, then I'll leave now and we can readdress this when he's in a more efficient mood."

He bridled at the offense, though Miyo's soft touch on his arm once again distracted him. "Stop," she whispered. "Don't fight over this. Just catch me up on the details later." Then she turned a benevolent smile on the dais. "I appreciate Shaman Natquik's kind offer, but I'm very tired from the journey. It was a pleasure to meet all of you."

Tuluk nodded his gratitude for her decision to defuse the situation, then looked to Kiviak. "Could you please accompany Sister Miyo to her quarters?" Kiviak seemed frozen, as if he expected to be privy to the discussions and was shocked to find this wasn't the case. He glanced at them all nervously.

"Of course," he finally said, and got to his feet. Miyo gave Natquik a quick smile before recollecting her things from the floor and following Kiviak toward the great doors of the kashiq. Helpless, Natquik watched her go.

Tuluk waited until the doors had closed soundly behind them, drawn shut by Kiviak, before he took a seat on the dais and gestured for Natquik to do the same. He waved away the invitation.

"I don't want to waste Shaman Urumkai's time." He put a teasing grin with it to take the edge off his sarcasm, but Urumkai seemed to feel that edge anyway, his glower darkening. "I'm assuming you received Shaman Tati's message. About the attacks."

"Two weeks ago," Tuluk confirmed.

"Unlike you, the messenger bird was actually timely," Urumkai grumbled. Natquik didn't grace him with a reaction. "We've already sent a response to Lesser Chief Atua."

"What kind of response would that be?"

Tuluk interrupted their exchange. "That we're in control of things here in the north."

"In control? So things have happened here."

"They have." Imnek seemed hesitant. They _all _seemed hesitant, as if they'd discussed how much to tell him and were still uncertain that everyone was in agreement. The Warrior Chief gave Urumkai a sidelong glance before continuing. "For about two months, there have been…unusual deaths. A lot."

"How much is a lot?"

"Fifteen." Again, he looked to Urumkai. He'd resumed his stony silence. "That have been accounted for."

Natquik suppressed a chill at the morbid implication those words held. "What do you mean, accounted for?"

"Not all the hunting parties have returned. We can't know the actual number until then." It was almost the dead of winter; the hunting parties should have all been home by now.

Tuluk must have sensed both his confusion and growing concern. "There was a blizzard four weeks ago in the western reaches. We suspect that held up the parties—nothing more."

"But four weeks—"

"Chief Imnek is handling it," Urumkai cut in sharply. "It's not your concern."

Natquik stared at him for several uncomfortable moments, trying to read past his gloomy exterior. There was something else going on. Everyone was too reticent; even as they were giving him information, he was fighting to get it out of them. "Then who is dying?"

"As Chief Atua noted," Tuluk said, "the deaths are confined to older men."

"Waterbenders? Warriors?"

"Of all walks." Now Hinaat spoke. She'd remained quiet, her eyes focused on her hands folded in her lap. Yet now she met Natquik's eyes, and there was an honesty in her expression that the men were refusing to show. "The deaths have no explanations. Burnings, eviscerations, blood loss, broken necks. Several of the deaths defied even my ability to determine the cause. It's as if their organs had simply failed, and in men whom that should not have been the case."

Urumkai cleared his throat roughly, and Hinaat fell silent. "Like your Shamans, Natquik, we suspect a spirit is behind the attacks. I've been working diligently to find its source."

"In the south, we think the spirit was working on the orders of a Shaman."

"We have found no evidence of such," Urumkai stated bluntly, and Imnek glanced at him in surprise.

Natquik frowned, eyeing Imnek for any other reaction. However, the moment had passed, and his expression was once more somber, unfazed. "The Avatar has talked to the spirits, and they say—"

"I too have been in contact with the spirits." By Urumkai's tone, he was not about to brook any continued argument on the subject. "My findings have been discussed thoroughly with Chief Tuluk, and we are pursuing the matter." Then his hard expression cracked just enough to allow a raised eyebrow. "We've also discussed your involvement."

Tuluk nodded, assuming an almost fatherly air. "We don't think you should concern yourself with this matter any longer."

"But—"

"Natquik, you're exhausted. You've been traveling for nearly three weeks and you'll be married in less than two. You have months' worth of preparations to fit into twelve days—how is it you expect to get anything else accomplished?"

"Chief Tuluk, I mean no disrespect, but I've dedicated the last two months to uncovering the cause of these deaths. We traced the origin to the north, and now that I'm here with a prime opportunity to keep working as a representative of the South, you say I shouldn't?"

"If you were a representative of the South, that might be the case." Urumkai could have chipped ice with his words, and his eyes could have melted it. "But you'll soon be a consort to the Princess of the Water Tribe. You are no longer of the South." That must have been a point of bitterness for Urumkai. He was the one who spearheaded the annulment of Natquik's betrothal when the tribunal was called four years before. The fact that Natquik was to marry Sahani anyway must have rankled.

But it didn't explain why he so adamantly opposed Natquik's involvement now. "Then once I'm consort, I imagine I'll automatically be included in whatever investigations you're undertaking."

Silence answered him.

"Please, Natquik." Hinaat studied him with both love and concern, though her hands played nervously with the tiger-seal fringe that hung loosely from her Shaman's coat. "You need sleep. We can approach this matter again once you've changed, eaten, and rested."

"But we _will _approach this matter again." Natquik meant it as a statement, yet it sounded too much like a question for his taste.

And Tuluk didn't answer it. "Come, I'll show you where you'll stay for the next two weeks." He assumed his usual wolfish smile as he stood up and took Natquik's shoulder. "Then you'll have a new room in my household."

Natquik followed, feeling his stomach sink at that, and for more reasons than one. On his back, he felt the glower of Urumkai the entire way.

**xXxXxxxXXxxxXxXx**

"I just can't believe no one's coming up from the South."

Sahani was babbling—had been babbling for the last hour, actually, though Miyo knew it was just from the excitement. Even after that long, her energy hadn't died, and she moved around the room with youthful vigor, shaking out each individual fur. Not that Miyo would use them, but she kept that to herself. Sahani seemed to enjoy the work, and she didn't want to spoil the girl's good mood. So she just stood quietly as Sahani chattered, moving from one fur to the next, her enthusiasm overflowing.

"My mother's family is in the south, as is Natquik's. But the only people who'll be here for the wedding are the northern clans." She was now folding several of the gray-white furs into neat bundles. These she set at the end of the striped fur rug, which itself covered the end of the rectangular ice room that was opposite the door. "I hope you don't mind; I asked Yiti to throw out the pillows. They were old, and I thought I saw gorilla-mice nesting in the sinew." She looked to Miyo apologetically—truly apologetic—and Miyo was forced to give her a pleasant smile.

"That's fine. I can live without pillows."

"Great." Sahani beamed and now turned her attention to the two circular windows in the long wall. The only similarity northern huts held to southern ones was that they were made of ice. Otherwise, they were as different as an Earth Kingdom home and an Air Temple cell. The northern houses were rectangular whereas the huts were round in the south, and the northern ones had more amenities. Such as the windows, which held fur curtains that Sahani now pulled from their hooks to beat against the sill. "You know, I think the thing I regret most is that Uncle Kinu won't be there. Did you see Uncle in the South?"

"Uh, yes, a little."

"Was he well? He doesn't watch his health. He told me once that he had never needed to be healed and he planned to die that way. He's really stubborn." She hesitated with a sigh, then looked over her shoulder at Miyo, her beautifully blue eyes wet with tears. "I really miss Uncle."

"He's in great health. He even asked Natquik to take care of you." That brought a laugh from Sahani, and once more cheerful, she moved for the second window.

"That sounds just like Uncle."

"Princess Sahani?" came a call from the door, where thick white furs hung. At the noise, she sprung across the room and flitted outside. A moment later the princess reappeared with her arms full of blue wool fabric.

"You can change into these while they clean your robes," Sahani said, handing the clothes off to her. Then, with an embarrassed frown, she added, "Would you like some privacy?"

"That's fine." The Water Tribes had a different concept of modesty—or rather, they had no concept of it when it came to the same gender. Women always dressed and undressed in front of each other. And uninterested in making a fuss over customs, Miyo began to strip off her nun's habit. "Is Kinu your only uncle?"

"No," she said, then cut off abruptly, her eyebrows drawing together in a rather charming look of unhappiness. "Well, yes. Now."

That piqued Miyo's curiosity. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you."

"No, it's…it's just very strange." She trailed off mysteriously, though if she was going to add to it, her words were forgotten as she glanced up at Miyo. Suddenly, she realized that Sahani was staring at her extensive tattoos, her mouth forming a small 'oh.'

"Strange how?" Miyo pressed, pulling the inner robe over her shoulders. It took most of her body out of Sahani's sight and brought her back on topic. With a shake of her head, Sahani dropped her gaze politely.

"My uncle Minaguk died a month ago. He was the last brother on my father's side. But he was very old, and they thought he would die soon. It's just that his death was so _unusual_. They never said what killed him, and they didn't even hold a funeral for him." Again, she met Miyo's eyes, her expression now a question. "Isn't that unusual?"

Miyo had no idea. But as she pulled on the warm woolen trousers, she knew she'd have to give her some response. "Well, certainly there's a good reason. So I can't imagine it's too unusual." Sahani looked less than reassured. And Miyo suddenly wanted to change the subject. "How does this look?"

"Bizarre," Sahani said, catching Miyo by surprise. A grin played at the girl's lips, and she realized quickly she was being teased. "You don't see too many Air Nuns in Water Tribe clothes." Sahani then folded her arms under her breasts, considering her at length as she walked closer. "But they don't look bad on you. You at least have something of a figure in them."

"I meant am I wearing them wrong?" Miyo said dryly. Sahani's grin broadened, and she tugged on the wool belt.

"Well, I've never seen a person with so little leather on them, but I guess it's good enough." She winked and brushed Miyo's hair back. After so many years, her height had finally caught up to Miyo's, and they now stood on eye level with each other. She'd become a real beauty since then, with flawless copper skin and thick lashes. She even smelled wonderful; the scent of processed animal hide didn't cling to her like it did to other tribesmen, and instead she carried an aroma of ocean roses.

"Oh, Miyo," the princess sighed, stepping around her to tug at her hair, "it's going to be so much fun having you here. Like an older sister. We can talk about all sorts of things. Your adventures around the world, the strangest sights you've seen. You can tell me all about flying on a sky bison."

Miyo was spared the uncomfortable bonding moment by another sound at the door. This time, she recognized Natquik's voice.

"Miyo? Are you in there?"

"Come in!" Sahani shouted brightly, and gave Miyo another wink as she whispered, "You'll have to tell me stories about him, too." For some reason, that made Miyo blush.

Natquik pushed back the white flaps hesitantly, sticking his head in to scan the room. Seeing it occupied but proper, he stepped inside. He didn't have his satchel, but he still wore his Shaman's coat, filthy in patches and the worse for wear. "Am I interrupting you two?"

"Not at all," Sahani said, bending to pick up Miyo's discarded robes. "I was just helping Miyo to settle into her room."

"Well, you did a good job." He examined one of the bone lamps on an ice pedestal in the corner of the room. "Even the oil is new."

"Wouldn't want the room to smell rancid." Sahani now made her way to the door, though she stopped beside Natquik before she left. Miyo didn't hear what she said to him, but he glanced at her, wide-eyed, and Sahani gave him a rather devious grin. Then she swept out of the room, the furs falling in place behind her.

Natquik waited several long moments, still studying the bone lamp, before he turned to Miyo. When he did, he gave her that look that she loved and hated so much, his expression set in a smile.

"I'm glad to see someone finally got you into some real clothes."

She almost blushed again despite herself. It was ridiculous to care how she looked. Air Nomads simply didn't think about things like that. Appearances were illusions at best and distractions at worst. If they cared at all, it was because the colors of the nun's habit held a spiritual meaning. Not because of what the clothing added to one's looks.

Yet now Miyo found herself caring. Found herself slightly enjoying the fact that the Water Tribe robes fit her body more snugly, accentuating a shape that she never really cared if she had.

"It's just until my robes are clean," she said, half in protest of her own emotions. "A temporary arrangement while I warm myself a bit."

"I can help speed that up." Natquik strode across the room, and she started to shrink away. But before she could make herself stop him, he pulled his arms around her waist. Then she had no desire to escape, her body pressed into his as she stared up into his eyes.

"Sahani was just in here," she whispered sharply, pushing her hands against his chest. That made him quirk a brow, his face so close that his nose nearly brushed hers.

"Well, I'm just getting you warm." It was working; she was burning up.

"What did they say in the kashiq?" Miyo made her voice flat, and gave him a look to match it. "Any news?"

"Can't you just let me enjoy the moment?" he murmured sullenly, his fingers playing up her spine. It was too much; she tore herself out of his grasp.

"Seriously, Natquik, what's going on? What was the meeting about?"

"What you think it was about." Fortunately, he did turn serious, gazing about the room. "There have been deaths up here, too."

"How many?"

"Fifteen."

Fifteen. Three times as many as there had been in the South. "So this thing _is_ targeting the northern clans?"

"Looks like it." He bended a stump of ice from the floor and seated himself on it, folding an ankle over his knee. "They've been occurring for the last two months. But there might actually be more deaths not yet accounted for. Some hunting parties didn't come back at the end of the season."

The revelation hung on the air between them, cold and uncomfortable. Grasping her elbows, Miyo dropped to the ground in front of him, forgetting briefly that she couldn't bend. Her foot twisted painfully, and she winced as she folded her legs in front of her.

"Have they all been men?" she continued, ignoring his look of concern. Still, he leaned forward and tapped her knee, quietly insisting that she let him see. With a frown, she straightened her leg, and he pulled her bare foot up into his lap.

"All older men, both benders and non-benders." His fingers were delicate, tracing the bones of her naked ankle, and it almost made her shiver. "They didn't give me an exact age range."

He was distracting her. Settling back on her palms, Miyo tried hard to keep her attention off of his examination. "How did they die?"

He didn't look up, one hand trailing up her calf as he grasped her heel. "Hinaat didn't go into detail. She said they died of burnings, eviscerations, blood loss, and broken necks. Four of the men in the south died in similar ways: two were burned alive, one was essentially eviscerated, and a fourth from blood loss."

"Which means there's a pattern." Miyo winced again as he gave a sharp twist of her foot; the ankle hadn't hurt until he started messing with it.

"Exactly. She also said several deaths defied any explanation, and I suspect other men have died. But perhaps their deaths were less strange or they were alone for much longer, so they were overlooked." He glanced up at her, his face drawn in deep thought. "Whatever this spirit is, it originated here. And from the looks of things, it's getting worse."

A chilly silence set in.

Miyo finally tried to pull her foot out of his lap, but he held firm as he returned to his study, pressing hard against the tendon. "Moreover," he continued, "they're denying a Shaman is involved. Urumkai made it clear he wasn't even entertaining the notion."

"But Hikoshu had it confirmed by a previous Avatar."

"Yeah…I guess they aren't as swayed by the Avatar's word as we are." Absently, he melted a chunk of his ice stool into water and covered her ankle with it, causing her to hiss at the cold.

"Just leave it alone. It's not that bad." But of course he ignored her, his touch tingling where the water glowed silver. "Did they at least tell you why they don't think a Shaman's involved?"

"They were very tight-lipped about the subject. I got the impression they only wanted to sate my curiosity enough to keep me from nosing around. Hinaat even suggested I just focus on the wedding." He dropped the water, letting it splash on the ice floor. A small amount trickled down her pants leg and tickled her knee. "How are you feeling?"

It was an abrupt subject change, but he looked sincere, his eyes once more meeting hers.

"I'm fine," Miyo said automatically. Truthfully, she was as fine as she could be. "What? Are you looking for something else you can show off your healing on?" She made her voice dry. He hesitated, watching her, then gave a small, humored 'hmph.'

"Your ankle's not hurt, but your muscles are tense." Everything about her was tense when Natquik was around. As if to make his point, though, he pushed her pants leg up toward her knee and began to massage her calf. "And if they stay tense like this, you really are going to hurt your ankle."

"Natquik, stop." If she could've airbended, she would've thrown him off of her. Instead, she just yanked her leg ineffectively against his hands. "I can take care of my foot, and you know it." That didn't stop his continued ministrations, as his hands worked their way up toward her knee. "What about the chief's library?"

"I didn't even have a chance to approach them about it. Something tells me if we're going to do any probing, it'll have to be on our own. They won't welcome any help from us."

"So then what are you going to do? Find this spirit, or plan your wedding?"

"It seems the former might be a little more important. I can always wait to get married." His sleeves kept brushing her skin, the fur soft and ticklish, and her foot was now buried against his hip, where she could curl her toes into his warm coat. All of that, in addition to the relaxing feel of his fingers, lulled her mind and made her so very tired.

"Maybe we should talk about this later," she murmured as she rested back on her elbows, the drowsy feeling overwhelming her. "We didn't sleep a lot last night."

"Yeah," Natquik said, though he didn't stop rubbing. And she didn't try to stop him again, either. A sigh escaped her as she let her head fall backwards, her eyes shutting on their own. The sensation was so soothing, and she really was very tense. Natquik's hands, strong and rough with calluses, coaxed her to relax into them.

"Sahani has grown," she heard herself say in the calming fog.

Natquik switched legs, lifting her other foot into his lap in order to massage the second calf. "Well, she's had a few years." His voice was gentle, deep, almost like a lullaby.

"She's lovely." Miyo finally gave up the fight of a last few inches and lay back on the striped rug. Above her, the ice ceiling caught the reflection of a nearby canal, flashing with the water.

"Yeah."

"You must be happy to be back."

Natquik didn't respond, his fingers kneading tight knots she didn't even know she had. Or maybe he did respond, and she never heard the words. In mere moments, Miyo was asleep.


	30. Ch 29: Aksu

**Chapter 29 - Aksu**

* * *

Hikoshu was floored by how quickly the scenery changed. That morning they broke camp surrounded by prickly bushes as gray as the early dawn, but by noon, the earth had turned yellow, cracked and hard as if years had passed since the last time it rained. Nor, subsequently, did anything grow. By mid-afternoon, Hikoshu was already missing even the skeletal grasses of the western plains.

As usual with such oddities of the environment, Hikoshu quizzed Diem, who as usual shrugged with apparent disinterest.

"Different watersheds," he said enigmatically, and thought that should be the end of the discussion. The answer left Hikoshu equally confused, but he chose not to dig deeper.

One feature, however, did not change, and that was the topography of the landscape. It was flatter than ever, flat enough that Hikoshu spied their eventual destination long before they actually reached it. The town of Aksu began as a small blemish on the horizon, which slowly gained substance and became a fortification whose clay walls gleamed, as if burnished, in the wake of the sinking sun.

"The palms are new," Yan-lin said at one point from her far more comfortable position behind Hikoshu.

Diem nodded. "Must have changed ownership since I was here."

Hikoshu finally caught sight of what they meant. The circular wall of Aksu, so tall that the tops of buildings didn't show above it, was crowned with trees. The trees were squat with wide fronds reminiscent of a multitude of plants native to the Fire Islands, giving life to the otherwise unimpressive exterior of the city. As they drew closer, the front façade around the city's gates came into view, which was carved heavily with motifs of plants and strange serpents dressed as unknown spirits. At a distance they had been invisible, but as the sun continued to slide lower in the sky, new shadows cast them into stark relief.

The gates were open, and a few men leaned idly against the ornate outside wall in quiet conversation, their dress very peculiar. Each man wore a short, round, white cap, with long green vests over their billowy loose tunics, and brightly colored shoes made of cloth. One had made an impromptu market stand with the intent to sell what looked like fish whistles. They passed by wordlessly despite his ploys.

Behind the gates, clay buildings that looked much like Water Tribe huts stood stacked together on either side of the main thoroughfare, wide semi-circular doors looking out onto the road. These were covered in thick, lizard-skin hides, similar to the circular windows that would interrupt the round walls at random points. They were occasionally lit by candles but many were dark, as the building's owners prepared to close down for the evening. With the street cloaked in the shadows of the wall, Hikoshu could barely discern wooden signs embedded in the rock just above the hut doors. They were all in a script he couldn't read.

Aside from the signs, the only decoration the huts bore was a swirling pattern drawn in white paint, as if to imitate the clouds or cresting waves. It plastered the hut walls and seemed to resemble more of a continuous artistic work than individual decorations.

"It's mist," Yan-lin said from her perch behind his shoulder when he asked. "On cold mornings, Aksu fills with a heavy fog. The town is even known to the beetle merchants by a different name: Misty Palms Oasis." Now that she mentioned it, the town was indeed far greener than the desert outside. The same squat palm trees grew in front of every hut, and larger, thinner trees towered over the road in sporadic intervals. In some places there were tufts of the same skeletal grass that had covered the plains, and in other areas were fruit trees, their branches brimming with bright green leaves.

Around their ostrich-horses, men wearing the same outfits as the men outside occasionally weaved across the road. Some sported facial hair, some were as dark-skinned as Diem, and they all shot suspicious looks at the leather worker. They even spared those same looks for Hikoshu and Yan-lin, though to a lesser degree. Despite this unfriendly welcome, Hikoshu didn't feel terribly bothered; he'd lived with distrustful glances for most of his life.

The air grew colder as they made their way deeper into town. It was a physical cold—a cold that made him shiver and wish he had his coat back. The sky was purple with dusk, and Hikoshu had heard that desert nights could be quite chilly. But he hadn't expected a temperature change so quickly. In front of them, a single spire pierced the dirt road. It had to be a religious shrine, given the rock barrier that separated it from the rest of the plaza around it. Yet if it was a shrine, it was surprisingly devoid of any relics or ritual items. The only supplicant was an old man, seated idly on the low-set barrier.

Diem dismounted before they reached that craggy, unadorned spire, and Hikoshu and Yan-lin did the same. Rather than stray from the road, however, Diem kept moving forward, leading his ostrich-horse around the basin holding the statuesque object.

Which, Hikoshu realized shortly before they reached it, wasn't a shrine at all. The spire was made of ice, its pointed tip glinting against the twilit sky and its uneven surface creating mottled ghosts in its depths. Wider than a person, it resembled the head of a partly-melted iceberg. But whereas icebergs were migratory features that crowded the Pole shores, this one jutted from the still-warm earth, water collecting at its stone base.

"_Shozhibing _is a natural ice spring," Yan-lin said as he stopped to gape. "One of the twelve wonders of the world."

"I've never heard of it."

"Well, it's one of the best kept secrets of the world, too. It serves as the town's water supply." Yan-lin gestured to the tiny rivulets that trickled down rough paths in the ice, collecting at the bottom. "You can't find purer water anywhere in the ten kingdoms. Even legends speak of its taste."

Hikoshu glanced at Yan-lin. She was staring at the ice as well, her expression bemused, and it struck him with an idea. Keeping his hands close and out of sight, he bended a sliver of water away from the ice and through the air, allowing to coalesce into a morphing globe above his palm. Yan-lin eyed him dubiously as he offered it to her.

"Just a sip," he said in encouragement.

She continued to stare at him in suspicion, then leaned forward to press her lips to the orb. And gasped in shock as he splashed her in the face. "Hikoshu!" The frigid water did not cool her wrath.

But it certainly added to his amusement. "You haven't glared at me in a while; I was beginning to miss it." Then, with an innocent whistle, he hurried to catch up to Diem.

Beyond the ice spring, the road continued some distance. The huts grew larger as they walked, and the road less crowded, before they found themselves in front of the wall of another enclosure, on the far end of the town. This enclosure extended from the great city walls and came together before them, forming a gate twice the size of the heavy-set man who currently stood just outside of it. The gate was open, but he still seemed to be guarding it, his back to them as he lit two lamps bracketed to either side.

"Evening," Diem prompted, and the man immediately shuffled back to give them passage.

"Stars to you," the man muttered, brushing back his short cap, similar to the kind every other man in Aksu wore. He hesitated, however, when he caught sight of Hikoshu, his expression growing guarded.

The look wasn't missed on Yan-lin, either. A few paces inside the gate, she pulled him to a stop and began to untie his belt.

He made a frustrated sound and grabbed at her hands. "Listen, you can tell me what you're doing. Don't just start undressing me whenever you please."

"You look like you stole an Omashu soldier's uniform." Though she explained herself, she didn't stop pulling off his clothes. Hurriedly, she divested him of his outer robe and tied the inner, lighter green robe tight. "They may not have much of an opinion about Omashu around here, but they certainly do care about thieves."

Then she rolled his sleeves, and knelt on the ground to rip off the decorative seam that was sewn to the length of his pants. How she managed to remove the border of metal discs without also removing his clothing was a complete mystery. Hikoshu bore it in pained silence, though, and even let her try to comb his hair with her fingers. The end result obviously didn't impress her, but she was at least satisfied he wouldn't get them run out of town. As a final measure, she turned his discarded robe inside out and covered herself with it, hiding the bedraggled remnants of what had once been an officer's wife's silk dress.

By the time they caught up to Diem, he'd already made his way across the empty courtyard, containing a modest pagoda with a shadowed shrine, and to a door on the other end of the enclosure. There were many doors carved into the single long building, which in turn abutted the town wall, but most of them were dark. Only this one was well lit, lamp fire filtering around the bottom of the lizard-skin flap that covered the archway. Diem had hitched up his ostrich-horse outside and was pushing back the skin to enter. Hikoshu followed as Yan-lin did the same to Ben-pao.

The room beyond the lizard skin was much larger than could be inferred from the outside, likely extending into the city wall itself. Devoid of people at the moment, it still looked to be a tavern. Several round stone tables filled the open space, and someone had cobbled together a roughshod stage at one end of the room. Lamps hung by chains from the rounded ceilings, which in turn created dark nooks on the periphery where anyone could hide. Hikoshu spied a man in one such shallow alcove, humming to himself as he tapped his foot.

While Hikoshu examined, Diem made his way to one of the off-shoots of the room, which itself was small and only contained a short counter and some shelves. A man had appeared from another lizard-skin-hidden room to greet him, his white cap missing from his bald head and his grin almost too wide for his face. They had launched into conversation before Hikoshu was close enough to catch the threads.

"….tribe you from?" he heard the man say as he neared, but Yan-lin pulled him to a stop before he reached them. He shot her a confused frown, and she gestured for him to be quiet and listen.

"Wusun," Diem answered casually, resting a hand against the stone counter. The man considered that hand for a moment, then turned to pull out a clay pitcher and a matching cup from the shelves behind him.

"Wusun's moved south. Tungho's been holding the town for about two years, but they've given Ju Deshi trading rights nearly as long." He paused to study Diem with severe, brown eyes. "You're not here to cause trouble, are you?"

"I'm just a man. If I caused any trouble, it'd be pretty short, wouldn't it?" Diem gave him one of his friendliest grins, which did the trick of easing the man's glare. "Wusun's still on bad terms with Tungho, then?"

The man humphed as he poured Diem a drink, the liquid bright red. "The Tungho seized Aksu during a holy day. What do you think?"

"Tungho's as devout as ever, I see." Then, silently toasting the subject of their conversation, he downed the drink.

"You going to introduce your friends?"

"Oh, yeah. Yan-lin and Hikoshu, come meet Kisu." He gestured back at the older man. "He's run this place since I was a kid."

"Long time," Kisu agreed, producing a couple more cups. "We don't get many Wusun around here anymore. Take it you're an exile?" Diem didn't answer or show any hint of emotion, but Kisu still seemed to read into it. "You got that look about you. Like a jackalope that's lost its burrow. How long's it been since you left the tribe?"

"Thirteen years."

"Sounds about right. Give it long enough, and the desert always calls you back." Pouring more of the red liquid into those cups, he then pushed them forward. "Help yourself. Drinks are free if you stay the night."

Hikoshu moved to take one, but Yan-lin caught his arm and whispered in his ear, "Drink it quick." Releasing him, she turned a smile back on Kisu and accepted one of the cups.

He wasn't quite sure what she meant. The drink smelled heavily of fruit and sharp cheese, which created an odor that was both palatable and surprisingly stomach-turning. Supposing the flavor of the beverage made it impossible to drink slowly, Hikoshu threw it back just as Diem had done.

He choked immediately, spluttering the drink over the cup and half of the counter. It was almost pure alcohol, stronger than anything he'd ever tried before. Diem and Kisu both dodged the spray, taken aback by the reaction and uncertain what elicited it. Yan-lin however, having gotten her revenge, smirked and set her own drink on the counter as Hikoshu struggled to recover.

"Actually, I don't find I'm very thirsty. Thank you, though."

Diem eyed Yan-lin, then Hikoshu's teary-eyed expression, before he turned back to Kisu. "So you said Ju Deshi's trading through here? When's the next caravan?"

"Was expecting the last one for the season a week ago, but some travelers been saying there's a freak sandstorm north. It's probably delayed them, I suppose."

"And Tungho?"

"Oh, Tungho comes through all the time, all the time." Kisu waved off the question as he found something to wipe up what Hikoshu had spat out. Hikoshu shot Yan-lin an accusatory glance to hide his embarrassment. "They've moved their territory west, so they're always here. Or at least the boys are, causing trouble. If you're planning on staying, you'd best be keeping your Wusun ties quiet."

Diem gave him a lopsided grin. "Every intention of it. So how about a room?"

The dark doorways lining the building had actually been to the guest rooms, which were either empty or still awaiting the return of their occupants. They found a vacant one not far from the stables, which Diem departed for with their ostrich-horses. Hikoshu was grateful he'd volunteered to do the tedious job of unsaddling them; though he hadn't imbibed much of the strong drink, enough had found its way into him to set his empty stomach churning, and Hikoshu immediately collapsed into the narrow bed pushed up against the far, windowless wall.

"No, please don't wait for me," Yan-lin said sarcastically as soon as he let his fire go out. Hikoshu grunted into his pillow.

"Find your own light source. I'm not your candle." The lumpy pillow smelled bizarre, like dust and old whale-worm oil. Gasping in agony, he threw it off the bed. Unfortunately, the even lumpier mattress didn't smell much better.

"You're such a child." He could hear the short screech of a table as she bumped into it, and a very unladylike oath under her breath. Turning his head, he relit a fire in his palm. It wavered unsteadily; Hikoshu wondered if even such a small amount of alcohol was getting to him.

"What was that drink?"

"Goatberry juice. The longer it ferments, the brighter it is." Now able to see, Yan-lin sat on the edge of the bed and rubbed her shin. His stomach quivered at the movement of the mattress.

"Yeah, well, that one was awfully bright."

"I know." She grinned and stroked his hair in mock tenderness. "I'm sorry, was it a little too strong for you?"

Hikoshu scowled. "You're still bitter about me splashing you in the face, aren't you?"

"Not anymore." Then, just like that, they reached a silent truce.

Unable to hold his hand up any longer, Hikoshu let the fire go and settled into darkness. "So who's this Tungho they kept talking about?"

"One of the five main sand tribes. They're large, with branches all over the desert."

"Kisu didn't seem to think very highly of them."

"The Tungho can sometimes be very temperamental. They have a shaky relationship with most of the other tribes, from what I understand."

"Will they be willing to help us?"

"I don't think so. Diem would have to negotiate for their help, and the Wusun and Tungho share a very unhappy past. They won't even take each other as slaves anymore."

"Slaves?" Hikoshu started to sit up in surprise, but the nausea forced him back down. "The sand tribes have slaves?"

"Yes, but please wait until they've shown you to the Great Library before you decide to free them." Yan-lin's voice was dry.

"Will you ever reach the point where you don't ridicule me for wanting to help people?"

"Sorry." His irritation must have come through, for Yan-lin truly did sound apologetic. Only slightly mollified, Hikoshu grunted his acceptance. They fell quiet until Diem pushed his way through the meager lizard hide that served as their door.

"Got the ostrich-horses tucked in. Ready for some dinner?"

"Yes," Yan-lin said, getting to her feet and jostling him in the process. Diem must have found some ghost crystals; though Hikoshu had his eyes closed, a vague light shone through the corners of his lids. "I think Hikoshu might pass for tonight, though."

"Fair enough. He was awful brave on that goatberry wine."

"He might have had some encouragement."

Hikoshu would have rolled his eyes, had sleep not started to tease at him. Before Yan-lin and Diem had even set out in search of food, he was already lost to his usual, unpleasant dreams.

They barely fazed him anymore, such that when he awoke the next morning, he didn't remember much beyond a watery grave and a sinister cold. Sunlight reflected off the yellow stone of the threshold when he opened his eyes, and the lizard skin barely cast any shadow. It was likely near noon or possibly some past it, though no one had bothered to wake him. A quick survey of the room revealed Diem sitting bare-chested at the table that Yan-lin had bumped the night before, her knife in his mouth and a shoe across his knee.

He didn't look back as Hikoshu sat up and wiped the drool from his face, nor did he notice him clasp his head in pain. In fact, he only seemed aware Hikoshu was awake when he finally asked Diem the most obvious question:

"Where's Yan-lin?"

Diem glanced at him over his shoulder, a grin spreading across his face as he pulled the knife from his teeth. "Out. Finally decided to join the living again?"

"You let me sleep in the bed last night?" Hikoshu swung his legs over the cot's edge, though he didn't feel steady enough to use them just yet. "You should've given it to her."

"Your stomach's about as weak as a young girl's anyway, so don't feel too bad."

Hikoshu couldn't argue that assessment. But he scowled just the same. "Where is she?"

"Like I said, out. Come sit by me. I may not be as pretty as her, but I'm entertaining enough."

Hikoshu dropped into the empty chair beside him—'dropped' being the best word to describe it, his head still pounding. "What's the plan for today?"

"Same as before." He set the knife on the table and worked the worn leather between his hands. "Hang around here until I find you someone with the next caravan and make sure you're established well enough to get you to the Library."

"With the Ju Deshi?"

"If they're the next caravan."

"Yan-lin mentioned the Tungho."

"Yeah, no good getting help from them. The lot of them—the western branches, at any rate—are pretty much worthless. You're better off asking a gilacorn to take you to water. Here, hold this." He handed Hikoshu one end of the leather. Pulling it taut, he started to scrape its surface with the blade. "Your best chance is with another tribe—any other tribe."

"Will you stay?"

Diem made an incredulous sound. "And risk getting myself killed? No thanks. I'll get the caravan to take you in, then skip off before they realize they want my hide."

"Why would the Ju Deshi want that?"

"The Ju Deshi don't, but the Wusun do. And I won't take any chances that one of my relatives married over."

Hikoshu paused before asking the next question. "Yan-lin said the desert tribes have slaves."

"Of course they do. I told you my father was a freedman, didn't I?"

"Yes, but…" Hikoshu supposed he hadn't considered what a freedman was—that it meant he had to be freed from something. Uncertain how to continue the conversation without offending Diem, he decided to change it. "What are you making?"

"A slingshot. It's an earthbending boy's preferred weapon. Want to give it a try when I'm done?"

"Maybe. Why are you making it?"

"Why not?" After that ambiguous answer they fell back into silence, Diem stripping the leather while Hikoshu watched. Even his growling stomach failed to disrupt the task.

"Did you eat already?" he eventually said. Diem didn't look up.

"You're sure full of questions this morning. But yes we did. We weren't going to wait on you."

"How long ago did she leave?"

With a beleaguered sigh, Diem set down the knife and leather. "If you're so anxious to find her, you're welcome to go looking. She said she'd stay around the _caravanserai_." Then, shaking his head, he tried to regain his concentration. "Honestly, I'm too old for the doggedness of young love."

"I'm not in love," Hikoshu protested, but Diem rolled his eyes in disinterest. "And you're not that much older than me."

"Well, then, I'm just too impatient. If a man had been after me the way you've been after her, I'd have told him off or taken him on by now."

Hikoshu found his wording strange, but was too offended to dwell on it. He wasn't after anything, as far as he knew. He just had an odd feeling about Yan-lin being gone. He realized after nearly two weeks, this had been first time he'd awoken without her. Perhaps he was growing too accustomed to having her around. But still, he couldn't deny that peculiar urge to find her.

Diem must have noticed his inner struggle, green eyes set on his face. "Don't quite know how you feel about that, do you?"

Hikoshu gave him a dark frown. "I don't have any interest in Yan-lin." Diem seemed momentarily confused.

"That's not what I was—" he cut off with his own warring expression, then shook his head. "So then tell me. What did mud pie do to you?"

"What?"

"You two have been hinting at a lot of things long enough, and I figure since I've told you about me, you can at least give me the courtesy of doing the same. So what did she do to you?"

"She didn't do—"

"Broke your heart? Betrayed your trust? Slept with your best friend?"

Hikoshu stared. "Buried a dagger in my back and let me bleed to death."

"Wow." Diem gave a short whistle. "That's quite a lovers' spat."

"I'm not joking, Diem." He suddenly found he didn't want to be sitting anymore. Going to the doorway, he pushed the hide back and scanned the courtyard. Some men lounged near the pagoda shrine, two adjusting the bridle of a strange, kinked-neck animal with wide, floppy feet and an unusually small head. It had a straight back, and it swiveled its long neck to bite at the saddle resting there. Bizarre.

"So you still blame her, after so much time?"

"Wouldn't you? It's not like she borrowed a possession of mine and forgot to return it. She tried to kill me. She wanted me to die." He didn't even mention the worst part—how she had indirectly allowed the Great Sage to steal his bending. How she had forced Natquik into a position of doing it, and how she had unintentionally forced Miyo to witness the torture. Even if Hikoshu could forgive her for hurting him, how can he forgive her for the rest?

"It must be hard, then. Carrying around this blame but still caring for her the way you do."

"I care what happens to her, but don't mistake that for anything deeper. I don't have feelings for her."

"Then why are you standing in the doorway, looking for her?"

"I'm not…" No. Diem was right. Hikoshu had thought he was stepping away to escape the weight of the memories—had thought he was getting some air. But in his idle study of the courtyard, he'd been unconsciously searching for Yan-lin, hoping he'd catch a glimpse of her even as he talked about still resenting her. What was wrong with him? Why couldn't he get her out of his head?

"I don't know what you two used to have between each other, Hikoshu, but you've forgiven her," Diem said softly behind him. "You just don't want to admit it yet."

"She's not here," he said almost to himself.

"What?"

"She's not here." He repeated this more firmly, and with a hint of rising concern as he turned back into the room. "The courtyard's empty. She's not outside."

Diem was still caught in a moment of uncertainty, his jaw hanging half-open. "She's probably inside one of the shops—"

"She's not." Hikoshu had no doubt. That was why he'd been obsessed with finding her. That was why something felt off about her absence. She'd left the compound, and now she was in trouble, and he didn't know where. The niggling worry sprung into a bonfire, his instincts screaming alarms in his head. Without explaining his sudden realization to Diem, he shoved the hide further back and ran outside.

The sun hit him like a furnace, both blinding and stifling all at once, and his still bare feet burned within seconds of touching the baked earth. But it barely registered to him, not much hotter than the coal beds his fellow firebending students used to goad each other into tackling, and he merely shaded his eyes against the brilliant light. The three men at the pagoda hadn't seen him, and near the gate of the courtyard, a white-hatted man carried water buckets on a pole. The space was otherwise empty.

"Your feet!" Diem had followed him outside and now hissed in admonishment. "You're going to hurt yourself." Never mind that he also wasn't wearing shoes. Hikoshu glanced to him, distracted.

"What am I going to wear, one boot? I'm a firebender." If anything could hurt him, it'd be an errant rock. So shoving the trivial concern far away, he hurried for the courtyard entrance.

He didn't know where Yan-lin was, and a growing anxiety on the back of his neck told him he didn't have long to find her. Desperately, he yearned for whatever spiritual element had possessed him the other night to possess him again—to help him search her out in the maze that was Aksu. But that one night had been a fluke, unachievable after his brief moment of harmony had ended, and Hikoshu knew no spirits would be aiding him here.

Identical huts filled his view the moment he left the compound, only the towering ice spire providing him a landmark. He mentally labeled this in order to orient himself, then headed right on a whim.

"Hikoshu, you don't know she's out here!" Despite having no faith him, Diem still followed. He'd grabbed the discolored cream shirt of his inner robe, which he'd managed to pull on as he kept pace with Hikoshu, but his hair was still loose about his face. He combed it out of his eyes, but without a band, it fell right back into place.

"She's out here." His instincts couldn't be so wrong. "Where would she have gone?"

"Nowhere. She was going to find some new clothes for you, and there are plenty of merchant shops in the _caravanserai_. She didn't need to leave the compound."

Was she taken then? Diem's words only spurred him into renewed throes of anxiety. Some small part of him hoped that he was telling the truth, but every other part knew that Hikoshu would be a fool to believe it. So, entrusting himself to a barely defined feeling and a piece of his spirituality that never seemed to surface, he raced headlong into the city.

**o~o~O~o~o**

Yan-lin had to get out of that room. Between Diem's lengthy complaints about how much copper prices were increasing on the raw materials market due to foreign currency manipulation and Hikoshu's incessant snoring, she was going to go crazy. So she made up some excuse about finding Hikoshu more appropriate attire and escaped their quarters before Diem could start on cotton prices. He caught her, anyhow, with a final warning: "Don't leave the compound."

"No intention of it." This she threw back just as the curtain swung shut behind her.

Though Hikoshu did need a change of clothing—it was only a matter of time before someone identified his robes as a half-shredded soldier's uniform—Yan-lin's most immediate concern was for her own feet. She'd had only slippers since the night they left Gangzhou, and if they'd been ill-adapted to their previous environment, they were almost worthless in this one. The blisters on her soles had long since burst, some of them now bleeding, but she'd swallowed the pain and marched on. On a few nights, she'd watched with envy as Hikoshu healed his one bandaged foot, but she never asked him to do the same for her. She would let her feet toughen, or she would just have to walk on stumps.

Now, though, she was regretting her decision. The ground had not cooled off the night before, and a late morning sun now infused it with additional heat. Yan-lin nearly limped as she circled the compound, looking for a sign over any of the open doors that would declare it to be a merchant's shop.

She found it after a short search, the wood plaque bearing a strange script that was a mixture between Omashu and Ba Sing Se, reading 'leathersmith.' Diem was probably a far better leather worker than whoever owned this shop, but he also lacked any useable supplies.

Entering, Yan-lin lifted her feet in a small rush of relief at the chillness of the stone, then let her eyes adjust to the dark before she crossed the threshold. There were two men inside the much cooler shop. A sandbender, whom she quickly identified by his dress, stood at a bare corner that spanned one end of the room, partitioning it into two sections. He'd taken off his visor and unwrapped his mouth to speak to the shop owner, but it still meant he was very nearly covered in cloth. But the sandbenders didn't use whole cloth, like the locals. Rather, they wrapped themselves in swaths of cotton which were easier to adjust when the need arose. The cotton was twisted around this man's calves and arms, all the way up over his head. He was almost a figure of white, only a thin brown tunic and pants worn over the apparent bandages. Like all sandbenders, he was shoeless.

He was currently engaged in an argument with the shop owner, who was pushing a saddle at him.

"Not for free," the owner said, shaking his bald head vehemently. All he had was a thin patch of hair at the base of his neck, which he'd grown out and braided into a queue. The crown of his head had been tattooed to resemble a dark blue crop of hair. "I'm telling you, ten coppers or a sack of millet. I won't let you twist my arm on this."

"I don't have either of those," the sandbender protested, and Yan-lin felt a small twinge of pity for him. She'd never gone very long without money, and even when she had, most people had taken kindness on her. It was the advantage of being young, pretty, and a noble.

Deciding to forestall the inevitably unhappy conclusion of this trade, she approached the sandbender's side and smiled at the store owner. "Hello, sorry, I was hoping I could interrupt."

The owner turned a frown on her, his guard rising at a new face, and a woman's at that. "What can I help you with?"

The sandbender was also looking at her. She noted out of the corner of her eye that he was young, possibly Hikoshu's age. And handsome in the sandbender fashion, with his startling green eyes and dark skin. He blew a few strands of reddish-brown hair away from his face, irritation at the interruption almost masking his curiosity.

"Well, I was hoping you had, by any chance, an extra pair of boots or shoes. Something that might fit a woman."

The owner eyed her for a moment, doubtful. "I don't usually. Not for feet as small as yours probably are."

"I'd appreciate if you could check, anyway." And along with the brilliant smile she knew she was giving him, Yan-lin added a whole silver piece. That seemed to jog his memory, as he nodded and ducked into an attached workroom. He'd probably find a pair of his daughter's, but it didn't matter to her. Shoes were shoes, and he was capable of making more.

Once he was gone, she turned her smile on the sandbender. "My name's Yan-lin."

"Aylam," the sandbender answered with overt suspicion, resting a wrapped elbow against the counter. Even leaning on the bench, he was still half a head taller than she. "You're from out of town?"

"Just came in yesterday." Her warm smile never faltered. "Are you Tungho?"

Aylam slowly nodded. "Where're you from?"

"Omashu. I'm not planning to be here for very long."

That produced a grunt from him, and he glanced toward the workroom. "Me, neither. Just need to get this saddle fixed, and I can head out."

"Did you come in by camel-llama?"

"Yeah, but I sold it. Half-tempted to sell this saddle, too, since it's no good to me. But it's my father's, and…" He gave an awkward shrug, his bright green eyes falling to the counter self-consciously at the emotional confession. "Just don't want to part with it, you know?"

That reawakened Yan-lin's pity. Or perhaps it was those green eyes. Either way, when the owner returned carrying some scruffy—but still wearable—brown leather boots, she fished out another silver.

"Ten coppers, to pay for my friend's saddle here," she said much to the surprise of both men. Aylam began to protest, but she waved it off. "It's for being so nice to me. And for being that handsome."

Grinning at his expression, she grabbed the boots and her change, then made her exit.

Normally, she would've felt some serious regret for wasting so much money on so little. Her father had taught her frugality, and haggling had become second-nature to her. But today, she only felt elated. Happy that she could help someone else out, happy that she had some decent shoes. Happy that she could flirt with a pretty boy for no other reason than he was a pretty boy.

Yan-lin had not experienced such freedom in many years. Being so wrapped up in the intrigues of someone else's game, she'd never had much chance to do anything for herself. Pausing by a stone kiosk that stood just before the pagoda shrine, she changed her shoes. Three men and a bleary-eyed camel-llama watched her from the eaves of the pagoda, taking more comfort in its shade than in its tiny deity statue. The relic was of some previous Avatar who had saved the town from marauders, but that historical fact was as likely lost on the three men who loitered there as it was on Hikoshu.

Caught up in the process of working her feet into the boots, Yan-lin didn't hear the man approach until he spoke behind her. "Hey."

She turned in surprise and saw that Aylam had followed her from the merchant's shop. With a smile, she faced him. "Will he fix your saddle?"

"Yeah." Aylam turned a charming red through the swarthy brown of his skin, and his green eyes darted humbly to the right. "Now I just need a camel-llama to put it on."

Yan-lin laughed. "That I can't help you with. I need one of those myself."

"Well, maybe I can find one to hold us both."

It was Yan-lin's turn to blush; flustered, she couldn't even provide an answer.

Aylam filled the silence quickly, as if afraid she might say no. "I'm sorry, that was forward." He held out a wrapped hand in apology, his fingers exposed between the bandages. "I really just wanted to thank you. For the way you helped me."

"Well, I understand how hard it is sometimes to make sacrifices. I would hope that someone would help me out if I were in a similar situation."

"You certainly helped me." That lopsided grin was particularly endearing, and she felt herself start to blush again. She fought to keep it down.

"So," Aylam said into the much longer, more awkward silence, reaching up to clasp his neck through the cotton wrappings, "if you're staying for another night, I was wondering if, maybe, you might like to eat something. With me. That is."

Yan-lin's heart sprung up with delight. He was asking her to dinner? No one had ever done that. Her social ranking had completely prevented much more than marriage proposals and invitations to walks by koi ponds. So that he was doing it now sent a chill down her spine and made her feel very self-conscious. Of course, she'd _love_ to have dinner with him. If only so she could say she had. But it was impossible; even as she entertained the notion of accepting, the thought of Hikoshu and Diem suddenly came to mind. With a far more muted smile, she shook her head.

"I appreciate your offer, but I'm not sure if I'll be staying long enough. And I wouldn't want to break an engagement with you."

"Oh." He looked disheartened. "I was really hoping you would."

"Sorry." She made her expression as apologetic as possible, hugging her old shoes to her chest. "I enjoyed meeting you, though. You _are_ very handsome." Winking at him, she started away.

Yan-lin was immediately grateful for her decision to find different shoes. These boots, while not perfectly fitting, were better suited for the environment than her slippers had been, blocking out most of the heat as well as the rough terrain. Though new areas of skin already began to chafe, she'd at least be happy to nurse the older wounds for a little while.

Relishing each step, she again didn't hear Aylam until he was practically beside her. "If not dinner, then at least allow me to help you out in some small way."

"Thank you, but I can't think of anything I need help with."

"Please. It's important that I repay you somehow."

Yan-lin hesitated long enough to study his face, to gauge his sincerity. His expression was honest and open, thick black lashes framing wide eyes, his lips slightly parted. There was a chip in one tooth, but it didn't detract from those looks. Admonishing herself, Yan-lin shrugged.

"I suppose you can tell me where to find a shop that sells fabric here. It would save me a little trouble searching."

"Fabric? As in for clothing?" Aylam squinted with a frown, skimming the compound, then shook his head. "I'm sure there's one around, but if you're looking for clothing that's already made, you should look outside in the town."

"Outside?" Yan-lin quickly remembered Diem's caution. Sensing her reluctance, Aylam nodded.

"I know of one place. I can give you specific directions on how to get there. You wouldn't get lost, and it follows the main roads, so you wouldn't be alone either."

Yan-lin couldn't say what it was about him that convinced her to go. Perhaps it was the sincerity in his face, or the charming way he smiled. Or perhaps she welcomed any excuse to escape into the town. She hadn't been free to explore in years—not since her days as a consul in the northwest Earth Kingdom, and even then on a limited basis. So the idea that she might wander the streets anonymously, without supervision, tantalized her enough that she agreed.

Aylam had not offered to accompany her, which she appreciated. Yan-lin would have never gone with a strange man anywhere, regardless of how trustworthy he looked, and his instructions seemed sufficient. She kept to the main roads, angling toward the tallest palm on top of the city wall, right off the main gate. According to Aylam, the shop was just below that. With a good grasp on where she was going, she let her mind roam over the scenes around her.

Close to noon, more inhabitants were out than had been the day before. Despite the heat, they opened their stores and homes, fabric canopies set up over shop fronts and window curtains thrown back to let in light. The majority of people were men, dressed all the same with their long white tunics and even longer green vests. Some wore different items, such as millers who sat crouched at round grindstones, spinning them with worn wood handles and collecting the flour into bowls. They occasionally reached into pockets sewn into the front of their aprons and sprinkled more millet on the stone slabs. Other men led horstrich-driven carts, or manipulated the earth to remodel crumbling buildings, or held the hands of younger boys who were dressed just like their fathers.

Every once in a while, a girl would peek out from one of the doorways, then retreat into the home. They would be allowed outside later in the day, a little nearer to sunset. Yan-lin didn't understand why there was a temporal segregation of the sexes, but she supposed it had to be more cultural than practical. After all, she could walk the streets without moral outrage because she was a foreigner, and the men had no other expectations of her. They didn't even give her a second glance as they went about their daily lives.

Yan-lin reveled in the total lack of attention. She treated herself to pointless fancies, such as stopping to buy a palm fruit or watching a fortuneteller throw sticks for an unmarried man. When a lone merchant on a camel-llama offered her a choice of hair ribbons, she even considered purchasing one, but then thought better of it. That pushed the limits of her newfound frivolity; what on the spirits' green earth would she do with a silk ribbon? A brief thought of Hikoshu came unbidden to mind, fleeting and ambiguous. Did she think he would look funny with the ribbon in his hair? It certainly amused her more than the alternative—that she would wear it for him…

Furiously, she shoved aside her idle thoughts. Her father would have leveled a mountain on her if he'd had any suspicion that she devoted such time to dwelling on them. Yan-lin was objective, pragmatic, and utterly uninterested in girlish things except when they produced long-term results. Refusing the merchant's offer, she picked up her pace and studied her terrain. The people had begun to thin out in this part of the town, but she overlooked that detail, so focused was she on being focused. Instead, she kept her eyes on the tallest palm and her eventual destination. It didn't matter that she was passing more decrepit buildings, or that fewer men were shouting on this street. She had something to do, and she would do it.

Because it distracted her, and she really needed to be distracted. When she let her mind wander too much, it wandered right back to that night in Gangzhou, and a moment she never anticipated.

_Right now, you're the only thing I have_, he'd said. _And for some reason, I suspect I'm all you have, too._

He couldn't be right. She couldn't allow him to be right.

Yan-lin marched resolutely on, deep in thought while she pretended to be fully aware of her surroundings. She'd spent a lifetime scouring away at her emotions, like the millers at their grindstones. When her mother died, her father had taken a flame to his feelings and burned off everything except cold determination. This he had taught her, too—burned into her more than any of the other hundreds of lessons he'd imparted over the years. Emotions were always at the heart of manipulation, and it was always better to be the manipulator than the one who was manipulated. So Yan-lin had learned how not to be manipulated.

No. She shook her head in reprimand. She was lying to herself if she thought she had control of her feelings, and self-delusion was a far greater flaw than a lack of control. Yan-lin had allowed the Great Sage to use her emotions against her—against her own father, and then against Hikoshu. And now she was letting Hikoshu use her emotions against her country. Or so she hoped. Because if she wasn't letting him do that, then she was choosing one man over Omashu. Her home.

_For some reason, I suspect I'm all you have, too._

Where was she?

While she'd been 'watching' the road, she had failed to notice how the buildings had become spaced further apart. They bore no decoration or placards declaring their intent, and she couldn't remember when she'd last seen someone on the street. Past the next two dome-shaped buildings the wall loomed above her, the shadow of the tallest date palm long against its side, but there was no indication that any clothing shop had ever been here. Suddenly anxious, Yan-lin slowed to a stop.

The shadows of the nearest building shifted, and she started as it morphed into a person. A sandbender, taller than Aylam, though identifiable by the same loose cotton wrappings that covered him from head to toe. Green eyes were locked on her as he strode across the dull, yellow dirt road, and he seemed to be crossing sand dunes. As if the earth moved with him.

Yan-lin shied away from him, gripping her shoes tighter to her chest. Diem had her knife, she realized with a sinking feeling in her stomach, and she didn't know where she was. The sun crept past noon, its heat crisp and aching, as she walked hurriedly toward the safety of another building. The man was coming toward her, but he wasn't chasing her, and she wouldn't give him the impression that he needed to. So she forced her legs to keep a steady pace—one that would carry her to safety.

But there was no safety. The building in front of her spat out another cotton-wreathed figure, and she nearly jumped at the new man who now confronted her. Aylam had lost his air of endearing charm. His height had now become almost menacing, and his eyes held a hard glint that looked less lively and more dangerous. Yet he still had a casual grace to his strides, and that incongruity disturbed her the same as if he were wielding a weapon. Yan-lin unconsciously backed away from him, only to stop as her body encountered something that didn't give. Immediately, she shrank from a third sandbender who blocked her path.

An ambush. Aylam must have planned it all along, and in her desire to feel normal, she'd let her guard down. Yan-lin silently cursed herself, her heart racing. Foolish loss of control. There were reasons she never went anywhere without an escort, though until now, she'd forgotten why.

"You know, I really think you should give that offer of mine a second thought." Aylam was behind her, his voice low and mocking, but Yan-lin couldn't turn from the other two sandbenders. "Us sand-people are pretty poor, but a rich Omashu girl like you could certainly buy a nice dinner, don't you think?" His hands clasped the back of her arms, his breath hot on her neck.

Yan-lin slipped into muscle memory, as she whipped her head back hard enough to slam into Aylam's jaw and chin. Surprising him, she dropped herself down before he could tighten his grip on her, her elbows flying outward to throw his hands away. Then she kicked back, aiming square for his knee and feeling his leg give as he finally cried out in pain.

Yan-lin whirled toward the second sandbender, who was already running to reach Aylam's side. Heaving her old shoes at him, she smacked the man in the face, then spun to face the last sandbender. He had shaken himself into action, making a dive to stop her. Yan-lin caught the insides of his wrists to block his attack. Her foot made contact with his groin a split second later, keeping him at arm's length and disabling him just as quickly. Then she ran.

After five steps, the ground disintegrated under her. Gasping, she threw herself into a somersault, the momentum keeping her above ground even as the road became a sand pit under her. She rolled back to her feet several paces from a doorway, and without assessing where she might be taking cover, she burst into the dark threshold.

Yan-lin gave a pained shout as, within several feet of the door, she slammed into something large and heavy. The abrupt change from daylight to shade had blinded her, hiding an enormous metallic object just inside the room. Clutching her stomach, she stepped around it as her eyes adjusted. The object was actually a square iron pan, larger than a person, suspended from the ceiling by chains. It had a hood above it, secured to the four chains by pins, and below it was the charred remains of a fire.

It had to be some sort of smelting pot or smoker, though its original contents were missing and the tiny room held relatively few hints of its purpose. Oversized tools hung on the wall, like tongs and wooden brooms, and a length of aged rope lay on the ground by her feet. Yan-lin did a quick appraisal of the items at her disposal, running through and then discarding plans. Without time on her side, she settled on one, and hoped that she hadn't missed any major problems. She wouldn't have time to correct for them if she had. Securing one end of the rope to a broken crank handle, she then hurled it over a wooden support beam just below the rounded ceiling. She hastily tied the other end to the metal pan.

It took almost all of her body weight to haul the pan upward, even with the help of the support beam, and she was sweating by the time she'd lifted it halfway. Yet the work paid off; when the shadow of one of her assailants fell through the doorway, Yan-lin had pulled the heavy metal contraption out of sight. Not that the sandbender would have seen it, anyway—the sun had marred his vision the same as hers, and he walked inside with both a mixture of trepidation and certainty that he had her cornered. Yan-lin suppressed a groan, her arms quivering with the effort of holding up the pan. The rope bit into her palms, and her fingers tingled. If he didn't hurry, she would likely lose her grip too early and with it her advantage. The sandbender, possibly even Aylam, inched forward.

She waited until his toe nudged the soot of the fire pit before she let the pan go. The loud screech of its chains was the only warning he received, but by then, he'd lost his chance to respond. Instead, it slammed into his thigh, knocking him off-balance, and its upward swing toppled him inside its shallow basin. It rang hollowly as his head slammed into the rim of the lid.

Yan-lin barely let the blood return to her hands before she hopped onto the pan's edge, clinging to one of the chains as it swung back toward her. She fumbled with the pin that held the lid up, and was swamped with relief when it gave. The pan was still in full motion as she scaled its edge, her weight throwing it into a chaotic dance as she shifted from one chain to the next. The pins became progressively harder to remove, and each time she pulled one free, the lid slid lower with a grating sound.

The final pin was the hardest to extricate, her nails torn and bloody from the last three. Desperation had fueled her until this point, but now she became painfully aware of the time passing. Of how many seconds had slipped by while she wrestled with the lid. The plan had seemed so intelligent at first, but she hadn't counted on how physically demanding it would be.

As if confirming her fears, her time ran out. No more than ten seconds had passed since the moment she released the pan, and that was exactly how long the sandbender needed to recover. A hand shot up and grabbed her boot as she still scrabbled at the pin, and she nearly lost her tenuous hold on the chain. With a short shriek, she kicked his hand away, hopefully catching him in the head as well, and managed with her remaining nails to rip the pin out.

Yan-lin jumped off before the lid clanged shut over the pan. From the howl of pain inside it, she suspected the sandbender hadn't moved his hand fast enough. She pulled the pan to a halt and shoved two pins back into place, effectively locking him in. Now the sandbender was encased in metal, unable to bend or escape, and she only had two left to worry about.

She pulled a pair of heavy iron tongs from the wall nearest the door just as another shadow fell on the threshold. She was barely able to lift them, her strength sapped with the demanding task of trapping the first man, but fear allowed her to sling the tool against her shoulder. The next sandbender was just stepping inside.

Yan-lin didn't let him enter any farther. With a hoarse cry she flung the tool at him, using its own weight to drive it. It came down violently on the back of his neck, and the man collapsed onto his hands and knees. Unable to lift the pair of tongs again, she dropped them and kicked the sandbender instead.

He caught her boot. "Yan-lin, stop!"

Not a sandbender. That registered to her just as quickly as the fact that he wasn't wearing sandbender clothing. Or shoes. "Hikoshu!" she breathed, falling to the ground beside him. He'd released her foot, but he hadn't stood up or even looked at her. She clasped his shoulders to pull him back.

Hikoshu groaned. "Wait, wait." He was hurt. She didn't know how badly. Eventually he managed to turn his head toward her, then grimaced as he sat back on his heels. Anguished and terrified, she ignored his complaints as she flung herself into his arms and hugged him tightly. Despite his pain, he hugged her back.

"Are you all right?" he asked quite ridiculously, holding her at arm's length in order to examine her. Yan-lin would have laughed it off had she not been so close to vomiting. "I'm sorry, I tried to get here sooner…"

"How did you find me?" she asked over him, but neither of them was in any position to hear the other.

"Did anyone hurt you?"

"I'm so sorry I hit you. I-I thought—"

"Why did you leave?"

"There are two men still outside. I have one of them trapped in here."

Hikoshu caught that last part. "You…you trapped him?" Dazed, he looked up at the metal pan, where the sandbender was beginning to pound against the lid.

Yan-lin couldn't feel pride at the moment, but she decided to stow away the memory of his expression for later. "Where's Diem?"

"Taking care of those two you just mentioned." The sound of earth exploding came in reply, and they both glanced at the door. "He might need some help."

"You're injured," she said as Hikoshu tried to stand. "You can't."

He got to his feet, unsteadily, despite her protests. "Stay in here. Make sure that man doesn't get out." Then he slipped back into the daylight.

Yan-lin followed him to the door, anyway. She didn't step out of it, though, surveying the scene at a safe distance. The air was thick with dust, either intentionally or as a result of the fighting. Regardless of the reason, it added confusion to the road outside, the world brownish and hazy. Even Hikoshu, standing a few feet away, was hard to see.

"Cover your mouth!" she shouted after him. He looked back at her as he pressed his sleeve to his nose. The ground erupted again, somewhere deep inside the haze, and suddenly Diem burst into sight, hitting the earth hard. He slid to a stop several paces from her. Leaving her cover, Yan-lin ran to him. When she pulled him into her lap, she saw that his cheek was bruised, his lip split open and bleeding, and he groaned as he tried to curl around his right side.

"This is what you call handling them?" Hikoshu asked. There wasn't any humor in his voice—only nerves.

"Been out of practice," Diem muttered.

The haze seemed to thin just enough for two figures to emerge, their silhouettes crossing the street. No, three figures—four. The men who initially ambushed her had added to their numbers, and though the dust obscured their faces, Yan-lin suspected they were all Tungho.

They confirmed her suspicions as two of them dropped into unfamiliar bending stances, and the earth became like water. It swelled upward into a writhing, snake-like form which sped over the road, its formless jaws aimed for Hikoshu. He wiped at the air with the back of his hand, the other pulled sharply to his side, and the sand exploded as if it had hit an invisible wall, fat tendrils spreading in every direction.

Diem tugged on Yan-lin's shoulder, drawing her attention as he sat up. "Get on out of here. No place for you."

"Come with me." The four benders had obviously been too much of a match for him, and if Yan-lin couldn't do anything else, at least she'd make sure he was safe. Diem, however, shook his head and dragged a hand across his mouth to mop away the blood.

"Hikoshu will need all the help he can get, once the rest of the Tungho show up. This isn't ending any other way."

Yan-lin looked back at the fight helplessly, and saw that dust was flooding the street once more. She could no longer see the sandbenders. Only Hikoshu was visible, the dark shape of his body twisting through bending forms used by Air Monks. He wasn't firebending—why wasn't he? Though she knew the answer just as quickly; no flame would burn well with the air so saturated with dirt. But he could easily clear the entire city of this dust cloud—any Avatar could. So why didn't he?

As the cloud settled on her and Diem, thick and choking, Yan-lin realized what was wrong. Hikoshu's airbending wasn't graceful. In fact, it barely seemed effective. His moves were almost erratic, half-drunken, and worsening by the moment. Like he was injured. He'd made an effort to hide that she'd hurt him with that blow to his head, but he was becoming progressively more disoriented.

"He's not going to make it." Yan-lin covered her mouth with the sleeve of her robe, but her eyes were starting to sting. Hikoshu was lost in a blur of tears. "Diem, you have to…"

"Get going, mud pie." He pushed himself to his feet. Just like Hikoshu, Diem hid his injuries well, only a small limp belying the pain he certainly felt. As he went to Hikoshu's aid the dust seemed to flatten away from him, creating a corridor through the air.

Yan-lin ran.

She didn't know where she was supposed to go, or who was supposed to help. The inn's proprietor had said the town was controlled by Tungho—which meant that the tribe was the only law enforcement Aksu had. She didn't know anyone else, nor did she have any connections that she could now exploit. But she had to do something, and she certainly couldn't fight.

Yan-lin hadn't made it far—just outside of the dust cloud—when her new boots tripped her up, depositing her hard on the ground. Panting, she got to her knees and tried to blink away tears that still blinded her. Though she hadn't noticed either the heat or the exertion before then, she felt almost faint. A plan or a direction. She needed one, and she wouldn't move until she had it. Occasionally, but growing more frequent, the earth quaked gently under her. Muted thuds rattled the air, speaking of a battle that she started but could not finish.

She had to go back. It wasn't much of a plan, but at least it was a direction. Gathering her courage, Yan-lin stood.

Five sandbenders surrounded her, warped by her tears. She instantly thought to run, but one of the men predicted her next move and caught her arm. He twisted it into a lock, pushing against her elbow as she gasped in pain. Unable to escape, she took a swing at her captor, who forced her back to her knees.

Eyes the color of the sea met hers. "_Aurag. _Who fights?"

Yan-lin hesitated as she finally took stock of this new man. His cotton wrappings were wider and heavier than the Tungho's, trimmed with dyed-blue fabric and draped such that they covered his mouth and head. Only those eyes, fierce and judging, were visible.

When she didn't answer, the man who held her applied pressure to her elbow, causing her to yelp. "Tungho! They're attacking another sandbender!" Never mind that that sandbender—Diem—was an exiled Wusun. These men obviously weren't Tungho, which was good enough for her. If they intervened, they might stop the fighting.

They didn't urge her for more details, likely suspecting that she couldn't give any more. Instead, they exchanged worried glances and voiced their concerns in a language that they didn't think she spoke. From what she could glean, they were Ju Deshi traders who had just arrived with their caravan. And they had no idea what to make of an unknown sandbender fighting Tungho tribesemen. Two of the men were nervous that it could be one of their own, while two others argued that it was better to leave the sandbender to his fate, if he chose to break the peace. All the while, her captor continued to hold her against the ground, and Yan-lin winced every time the ground shook.

Eventually, their leader—the man who spoke to Yan-lin—decided they should at least investigate, and she was hauled to her feet. Ever distrustful of _aurugen_—their word for 'foreigners'—the sandbenders refused to release her until they were certain that she hadn't lied. Which was fine with Yan-lin; she just wished they would hurry.

The explosions had increased in such intensity that Yan-lin was surprised to find the buildings still standing once they returned to the scene. A wall of dust still floated over the street, so dense now that even silhouettes were obscured. The dirt road was no longer a road. They had upheaved enough stone to form small hills, and as Yan-lin stood with the Ju Deshi traders, an eerie silence settled over the street. That silence scared Yan-lin more than anything up to that point.

Three of the traders stepped forward in identical bending forms, their bodies hunched and low, and suddenly the stifling cloud condensed. It fell like sheets of rain, settling immediately, and revealed the Tungho benders—now seven total—dozens of yards away, their faces concealed in their customary scarves. Yan-lin barely noticed them; Hikoshu and Diem were nowhere in sight.

"Tungho!" the Ju Deshi leader shouted. "What happened here?" Her captor tightened his hold on her neck and arm, as if prepared for her to run.

Several paces away, the ground suddenly rumbled, then spewed out both rocks and Diem. He looked weak and badly beaten as he dragged himself from his former grave, coughing as if he'd been air-deprived for minutes, and dirt poured out of his loose hair. There was a moment of silence, as the Ju Deshi puzzled through this new turn of events—this sandbender in _aurag _clothes—and Yan-lin's relief failed to match her worry for Hikoshu.

Then the world itself cracked open.

Wind blasted every person, creating a maelstrom that nearly threw them off their feet, as the road split and crumbled before them. Diem struggled to pull himself away from the widening fissure, but Yan-lin no longer saw him. She couldn't tear her eyes from the singular woman who rose from that chasm.

The woman was swarthy-skinned, slender and beautiful and destructive. Ribbons of blue-tinged cloth were tightly wrapped around her limbs, their ends whipping violently along with her tunic, which seemed to feel the wrath of her airbending while the woman noticed none of it. Her hair thrashed across her face, occasionally concealing a glare made only more severe by the fiery glow of her eyes. Ghostly eyes.

Likely no one else knew who this woman was, but Yan-lin did. A destroyer of nations. Murderer of thousands. Still hated by many, though she'd been dead for twenty-five years.

The Earth Avatar Sidhari, once more flesh.

In that awful, terrifying moment, no one knew how to act. They didn't understand who the woman was—why she hovered several feet above the ground or why her gaze held such deadly intent. One of the Tungho men stepped into a bending stance, perhaps to protect himself from the dirt and rocks that pummeled them all. It garnered Sidhari's attention, and her arms snapped around her in a move that was both elegant and lethal. She lifted the earth—animated it like some horrific, burrowing beast that shot at the sandbender even as he was still falling into his stance. When it hit, the force of it threw him through the wall of a nearby building. He couldn't have survived.

Sidhari swept her fierce gaze over the Tungho, then looked to the group behind Yan-lin. She felt them hit the ground behind her, collectively going to their knees. She then realized she was on the ground herself—had been there since Sidhari emerged. But not out of genuflection. Yan-lin was shaking so hard, she'd lost the strength to stand.

"_Stay, men of the Tar Rocks Sect._" Sidhari's voice, in contrast to the softened syllables of the Ju Deshi language that she spoke, struck them as powerfully as the wind. Her words resonated without origin, as oddly out of place as her physical body, which seemed almost tacked onto the scene without any real presence. "_You look on the daughter of Saidah, daughter of Shaku, of the Saltwater Sect_. _Guide me beyond the flats, to the stone we must not touch. By the sails of our ancestors, I ask this._"

Suddenly the wind shifted, and what little dirt hadn't yet been swept away was flung into the air. As the jagged fissure along the street stitched itself together, Sidhari sucked the remaining dirt toward her, until it covered her entire body and blotted out the glow of her eyes. Almost as quickly as she disappeared from view, the wind stopped and the dirt sloughed to the ground.

Leaving only Hikoshu, who stood as if held by strings, his eyes closed. Then those invisible strings were cut, and he collapsed, unconscious.

"Hikoshu!" Yan-lin scrambled to her feet, but before she could take a step, one of the sandbenders had her by the arm again. The five men behind her were shouting—confused shouts, echoed by similar shouts from the Tungho across the street. Instead of attacking, the six men had run to the building where their fellow tribesman had been tossed. He had not yet resurfaced at the broken wall.

"Let me go!" Yan-lin pulled against the Ju Deshi trader, but he forced her back to the ground. "He's hurt. He needs help!"

"_She's his wife_." Diem spoke up, his harsher Wusun dialect slicing through their frantic arguments. The Ju Deshi stopped bickering, their eyes turning to him. He hadn't managed to stand—Yan-lin wasn't sure if he could—and he clasped his arm as if it might be broken. Despite the pain, he ducked his head in subservience, and repeated, "_He is Ju Deshi, and she his wife._"

Perhaps they believed him, or perhaps they were simply stunned. Whatever the case, her captor released her once more, and Yan-lin didn't hesitate. Half-crawling, she climbed through the ruins of the street until she reached Hikoshu's side. Like Diem, his face was bruised, and a rock must have caught his neck, for there was a gash along his collarbone. But his breaths were regular, even, and unlabored, as if he were asleep. Sucking on her lips to staunch a wave of emotion, Yan-lin dragged him into her lap.

A shadow fell on her, distracting her from her careful ministrations of his most superficial wounds. She looked up to see the Ju Deshi leader once more towering over her. His face was still covered, but his eyes seemed less harsh—almost sympathetic.

"Come, sister." His voice was muffled, but kind. "We have to go. By the sails, we've been asked, and we can't refuse. But we'll only find trouble if we remain here."

At those words, Yan-lin looked to the Tungho. They still stood by the wall, where a distant wail of utter grief arose. So the sandbender hadn't survived. He was right; they were about to find quite a bit more trouble.

Yan-lin nodded as she glanced at Diem. He seemed almost defeated, but nodded in return. They were going into the desert. All of them. Immediately.

* * *

**A/N: **Longest chapter of the story so far. And probably why it took me two months to completely rewrite it.


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